The Biggest Freeze: Montreal's Catastrophic Ice Storm of 1998 

As a Canadian, seeing canada focused content from one of the best weather channels on youtube is always the best

4 inches of ice is insane and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of this, thanks her covering all kinds of weather events and keep them entertaining.

We were living in Northern Vermont in 1998. We fared well, but the effects on the region were tremendous.

My grandparents were stuck in a second home in the Adirondak Mountains in northern New York. They had a wood stove to keep the house warm. After three days listening to trees snap like gunshots they drove out behind a plow truck and a national guard humvee. Thanks for the video!

I really appreciate the fact you cover Canadian weather in-depth. Most channels will just give it a passing mention or not mention it at all. I enjoy the fact that it is never forgotten in your videos and is a nice change of pace from the typical America centric meteorological side of the internet. I’m definitely biased saying this, being from Southern Ontario, but I think an interesting story you should cover is that of May 21st, 2022. A very recent example of a very harsh Canadian weather event. Love the content man, always brightens my day when I get a notification that you’ve uploaded.

After the storm I had a spiderweb on my front porch, the thin strings turned into 3 inch wide crystals hanging midair.

I was a grad student in meteorology at McGill for this event. I actually flew back from BC after spending Christmas there and arrived just as the freezing rain had passed through Toronto. Because of delays I actually stayed overnight at Pearson and ended up missing my first day back. When I woke up the power was starting to already go out. I ended up losing power three times, but my tropical fish tank survived somehow. But yeah, it was so surreal "the night the power went out in Montreal" and seeing the only illumination being car lights. I ended up staying at some friends' that evening because the busses were all packed because the Metro was shut down. I actually ended up walking home that night. I still remember the sounds of the cracking of the trees, and even though there was that one last transmission line which didn't go down we were so lucky. But I had no idea that the collapses happened because of oscillations from ice shedding. That could actually explain why that last line didn't go down. When I first heard about how it was the only one which didn't I remember talking to my colleagues that there wasn't any good reason that it shouldn't have collapsed since although the ice was worse south, the line which didn't had the same load as a couple of lines which did.

Would you be interested in covering the Children's Blizzard of 1888? An unseasonably warm winter day on the Canadian prairies resulted in children going to school in their Spring clothes, only for a blizzard to plunge the area to -40°C, resulting in many children freezing to death.

The maple trees being damaged/lost reminded me of something that happened during the 2021 Texas Snowpocalypse. The snow didn't just fall onto plants, it *stayed* on plants. The red-tipped photinia outside my window was rocking 1, 1.5, 2 solid inches of snow on each of its leaves, and it stayed on there for just about a week -- absolutely enough to kill off all its leaves, and that's what all the plants (most not built for significant snow cover) around here faced. It came back just fine eventually, but the week after the Snowpocalypse...it looked like a week in fall. Dead leaves falling from barren trees; dead vines clinging to roofing and eaves; dying plants dropping flowers like they're just about to leave for the year. My biggest regret is not thinking to take a picture of it. Plenty of pictures of other things, though. Most native plants survived and came back (even the blackberry bushes in the local park...how they survive everything they do, I have no idea). And on the bright side, according to the Galveston Ornithological Society, many tropical invasive plant species were eradicated from the Gulf Coast and surrounding areas due to the freeze, so that's something.

The longest lasting damage that storm caused for our family was our relationship with our neighbors. People from all over Quebec were donating their firewood to people without power who wanted to stay home. Our neighbors kinda abused the system a bit (they had two cars so they pretended they were from two different households to get twice the free wood). When they suggested we should go get some free firewood for ourselves, my father very tactfully replied: "We're not beggars. We can afford wood". Neighbors didn't speak to us for about two years after that. Fun times.

17:59 I listen to this as I'm iced in in Texas. Granted half an inch isn't much for where I used to live but for here it shut down everything.

I was just a toddler when this hit Maine in 1998, always heard stories about how devastating this storm was. I just found your channel very recently, and it’s cool learning more about an event that hit an area in my lifetime.

Lived in Maine my whole life, born in '87. Easily one of the biggest natural disasters Maine has faced. I live in a rural town and power took at the least a week - week and a half to get turned back on. Tree almost fell on our house and it was eerie standing outside and hearing all the limbs crashing. Quite the experience that I hope this state never sees again in my lifetime.

Great coverage for this historic event. My family lived through some of this in the Ottawa and southern Quebec area just east of Drummondville. One correction, on a number of occasions you mention Hydro Canada. That is not a thing. Ontario had Hydro-Ontario (defunct in 2015) and Quebec has Hydro Quebec. In Canada the electrical distribution companies are provincial organizations. It means a lot less today as many of these are sadly now private companies (corporations). Hydro Quebec is a hold out as it is still a provincial institution.

The music was perfect... I always find myself listening to the intro music every video...

Here in Finland we have one of the most cold winters in like 30 years going on now. Apparently most of northern europe has had cold start of winter and lots of snow.

I remember a bad ice storm around Toronto in 2013 just before Christmas. I think my city was spared from the worst of tree damage only because of the Emerald Ash Borer. It had killed lots of trees, which happened to be removed months before the ice. For sure, my own house would have been destroyed by a dead tree that had been removed just months before. I've never seen anything so destructive that looked so beautiful with ice coating everything.

The Goldy Locks zone, it makes perfect sense. The Rain/Snow line is pretty simple when you consider just those 2 precipitation types, it's the parameters that contribute to that layer which has a certain thickness to it of which divides the Sleet from the Freezing Rain that are complex to understand. I think I get it though, on your video where you described the 4 graphs with the Rain/Snow line at the warm/cold air boundary, there are 2 scenarios where the line is skewed in the vertical to create a condition where there is a LAYER that is either substantially thick or rather thin as any precipitation falls through it allowing for the liquid to freeze. This video just gave me the best perspective for which to stand on how this works, so 2 thumbs up Steve; you are nailing it. And if I think about it more that thin layer is responsible for the freezing rain but if its thick enough the rain will freeze and have enough distance to continue accumulating water droplets around the Nuclei until it becomes the "Sleet" which my mind sees it as WARM Solid State water; wherein the Freezing Rain is the inverse that is COLD Liquid State water. Sleet is like snow that can stay solid above 0° C. and Freezing Rain can stay liquid below 0° C. I think I finally get why on COD (College of DuPage):weather numerical models has a parameter they call "Critical Thickness" and by no coincidence their notes state that the parameter "is an In House favorite for forecasting precipitation types" by comparing the locations of the various thickness levels denoted by the distance between the lowest and highest geopotential heights on the isobars. You're awesome Steve, this video is friggin sweet and everything checks out, one of the best videos yet. I watch a lot of artists on RU-vid who have Patreon to help them fund their music and as a musician I feel compelled to help them out but for whatever reason I feel like what you're doing with this channel is the best art on this platform. WEATHERBOX drops a video and I sit down with scribe and paper and I learn. If Weatherbox had a patreon, I would donate what I can afford, no questions asked.

OMG almost jumped out of my seat when I saw this! Thanks for covering it. I’m a bit too young to have been around for it, but every Montrealer (and people from the surrounding areas) who did have it firmly engraved into their memories. I’ve heard lots of stories.

I was 3 years old living in the North Country in New York when this storm hit. I don't remember a whole lot about it since I was so young, but what I do remember was everyone around me being scared and seeing all the downed trees and power lines after it was done.

This has been an event I've been fascinated by for years! While there are lots of videos out there about this event, no other video does a better job of explaining the meteorology behind what happens better than your video. Keep you the great work!

Native Michigander here. We had an ice storm in April 2018 that knocked out a lot of power in the metro Detroit area. My family was without power for about two or three days. I remember seeing icicles coated on the power lines in our backyard. (Thankfully none of those lines ever fell). It was probably the worst ice storm I'd ever seen. But my experience with that storm is *nothing* compared to the Montreal one. I can't even *imagine* looking outside and seeing thick ice over everything possible.

This is really the only winter storm people from Ontario and Quebec still talk about to this day. My family lives in Ottawa. I wasn’t alive in ‘98 but my father certainly was apart of the cleanup efforts.

You got the T-shirt!! I remember you saying you wanted the T-shirt for the 1977 blizzards, so I'm glad you got the T-shirt for the 1998 ice storm. I don't think I've ever been so grateful to live in the UK, I was 17 that winter - and don't really remember hearing about this anywhere. Thank you for the diagrams and graphs you include which help make things clearer for the non-weather nerds (weather non-nerds? Something?) like me. You're one of the best weather channels on RU-vid, thank you.

Ice storms really are the worst. Thanks for another great video!

@weatherbox I lived (and still do) in Plattsburgh, New York when the ice storm struck. I was 6 years old and I still remember how terrible and terrifying it was. The trees & power lines snapping and falling sounded like War and it ended up giving me nightmares for a couple years, honestly. Glad me & my family ended up surviving.

You should do a video on the April 4, 1966 EF4 tornado that crossed the entire Florida peninsula and killed 11 people, injuring hundreds more. I haven’t seen a single video on RU-vid about this tornado and yours would be the first. I got this info from the tornado archive website but you could do the topic much more justice.

I lived further up north so i did not witness that ice storm, but my boyfriend did: he lived near Drummondville back then. He was lucky his grandmother was in a care facility for elders (who are still independent): these had priority access to electricity. She had him and his mother come live with her during the crisis, in her tiny 1 bedroom quarters. There are a few videos on here (in French mostly) where they interview people, and you can feel the sadness and trauma 😢

I didn't know how like... situational freezing rain was. Like it makes SENSE because i DONT see it all of the time but I'm also so used to it being a possibility as a midwesterner I didn't think about the conditions it takes to make it. Good video as always I enjoy learning about weather events through you!

I'm from Ottawa and it's awesome to see this content, thank you for telling this story!! Also my family had that book on our coffee table growing up it's a great way of telling the story in picture!

interesting point on the El Nino - currently despite being some of the largest recorded El Nino events currently Australian weather is showing the actions of a la Nina event, we've had a significantly wetter and cooler summer in parts of SE Aus

My then-new husband and I visited his parents in the extreme eastern part of Virginia for Christmas in 1998. While we were there that part of Virginia experienced an ice storm that knocked over trees and power poles and cut power to everyone in the rural area where they lived. We actually had a very nice Christmas, and because my in-laws were used to bad weather they had plenty of water and also battery-operated lamps, radios, and so on. We used the gas oven for heat. It wasn't nearly as bad as the one in Montreal, but it wasn't a lot of fun.

I went to a disaster response safety training class and they said that the piece of equipment most likely to hurt their user was (unsurprisingly) chainsaws, but #2 was generators. They also pointed out how important it is to look out for widowmakers, broken branches hanging from trees and just waiting for a gust of wind to come crashing down on someone’s head. Hopefully I won’t need the training anytime soon 😬

Fantastic piece, Steve - how about doing a video about Boston's nightmarish February 2015? 110 inches of snow in just over a week, and the havoc it caused was insane...we pray every year to never have one like that again...🙂

Oh wow, this video has so much rich information, thank you Steve. Split Jet streak? That's interesting and kind of suspicious. Inverted Low Pressure trough? WOW, more common in equatorial tropical cyclones you say? As in, where they move westward instead of eastward and the atmospheres structure is closer to being perfectly Barotropic, correlation or no? OMG, now I wonder if the deformation zone in a midlatitude cyclone seems to have some characteristic relationship to the development of "Baroclinic Waves", either when they begin or when they start to degrade. Like, as if Deformation has something to do with Density Gradients and how they do NOT align with Isobars from the surface up to any respective pressure level, maybe because of the cyclone orientation to the Temperature Gradients they move along. Oh my goodness there seems to be a relationship and this makes sense that its very pronounced in the winter when Pressure Gradients (or thicknesses of geopotential height) between the Equator and Poles are the most extreme. Am I crazy or is there something to this?

I remember the storm very well. The sound of the trees just exploding from the weight of the ice is something I'll never forget. You can still see the scars in the formerly heavily forested areas. The maple industry also took a major hit, with a lot of maple trees severely damaged. Scary week.

One bit of ingenuity that always amazes me during that strom was from the small town of Boucherville, Quebec. When the town lost power and HyrdoQuebec confirmed to the mayor that power would not be restored anytime soon, the mayor checked her options and she thought about 2 Canada National locomotive that were in town. She decided to call Canadian National and ask if the town could borrow the locomotive to use as generators and the Canadian National said yes. So they got ready, drove the locomotives to a railroad crossing near the city hall, then they used a mobile crane to lift it of the track by a few inches, turned it so that it faced the street and they literally drive it on the road. I had no idea beforehand that a locomotive could be driven on a road. It worked, although the road and the locomotive had to be repaired afterwards, but it worked, they they were able to adjust the locomotive's generator to output 60 hertz and they were able to use it to power essential services and shelter. The second locomotive was also left running to be used as a source of heat for other people outside.

I was there. The ice was absolutely wild. It took days to get a generator from three hours away. We were extremely fortunate to have a wood- burning fireplace and to have just gotten a big pile of firewood. The river up the street flooded when it was all over, and my friend's dad had to canoe down the driveway to get help.

You should do a video on a F4 tornado that hit Augusta MI back in 74. It destroyed the entire village. I'd love to hear the Meteorology on it!

Seeing all the cars and trucks driving around knowing nothing newer than 98 would show up was oddly comforting.

In 1998 my Dad was a teenager. He was in the middle of high school and Toronto he said we didn’t get as much ice, but the schools were cancelled all over southern Ontario.

I remember being in high school when this happened. Crazy stuff.

Great content! I am fascinated by (and terrified of) ice storms since the 2021 North American Winter Storm. I'd love to see a complete analysis of that event.

I lived in Chicago which was not affected, but the news coverage was very thorough. It was huge news.

love the content man keep it up!

Your videos are astonishingly interesting

I was a teenager when this happened and school closed for several weeks. Me and my friends were bored so we tried to walk to rent a movie not even considering that the rental place was probably closed.

Weather box videos never miss they are always so good

This ice strom was a complete freak weather event. The late 1997 through early 1998 El Niño was insane. Even crazier it was followed immediately by a La Niña which led to Atlantic Hurricanes on steroids.

Watching this while it’s snowing for the first time in a very long time in Lynchburg VA! Love your videos ❤

Watching this in coastal NH where 3-5 inches of snow just fell, and then it started raining while the temperature hit the Goldilocks zone, and now there’s freezing rain and this video is just wildly and incredibly relevant and well timed. Fantastic content as always, thanks for making videos.

I remember that I was in Quebec City and all we had was snow there. We never felt to lucky to have snow.

I had seen 2 commercially made videos of this storm. Not only did they not include the precursors but they focused exclusively on the warm water air and pretty much left out the interactions of the cold air except to talk about how the ice formed. They also added some sob stories and personal accounts that were only added to create emotional content which made the videos into weepers instead of weather. It sounds like a whole different storm when you describe it and makes a whole lot more sense. Not only that but your calm, informative delivery makes this account a keeper.

I clearly remember that El Niño because of all the bizarre weather it spawned in California that year. Hardest rain I’ve ever seen in CA, with streets flooding in minutes. Snow in the mountains in June. It was a weird time.

11:48 New Finland!

Nice going, weatherbox! You had an excellent summary of the Montreal ice storm ☔️ on both your b video and short! This shows ice storms can cause more damage than snowstorms because they cover a lot of 🌲 trees and cause blackouts when the branches break and fall on the power lines! Fine story on the disaster!! 😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

Freezing rain is no joke. Roads and sidewalks with even a small amount are tough. I own shoe spikes for that reason. This always shocks me when I see it.

I remember this. Man, 26 years ago now. When did I get old? Sadge. My neighbour's tree cracked one night and smashed his van, then the other half of his tree came down the next night. If it hadn't caught on our tree and took it out, it would have smashed into my bedroom through the house while I was sleeping. That was also the same incident where I almost lost my hand to a chainsaw when holding a log for my dad (from the two downed trees). If I hadn't been wearing super thick winter gloves, I would have lost my right hand and it would have ended my career as an artist. I remember in the following years, Quebec changed the design of their transmission towers to prevent collapses in the future. I think it's only a matter of time before these towers are truly tested.

I know thats worse than the Tulsa ice storm of 2007 but the difference is Montreal is built to handle snow and ice, Tulsa not so much. Some sources say we had 3 inches of ice, thats not accurate we had closer to 3/4's of an inch but that was enough to knock out power to 80% of thr city and knock over a lot of trees.

It's always an interesting day when Weatherbox uploads. Great production as always!

You know the day will be good when there is a weather box video

Your music selection for your vids is top notch. Is someone a Boards of Canada fan? Your content is great! Keep up the good work.

Your videos are always a treat. So well done.

Bangor Maine Mentioned!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Seriously though, I just finished reading the book Northeastern by Cathie Pelletier and it's one of the only books I've seen focused on Maine weather. It's about the people affected by the 1952 blizzard and is a really good read.

The first electric transmission tower that fell was close to where my grandparents resides and my dad was one of the soldiers deployed to help. I personally have no recollection of this event since I wasn’t even 1 year old. Edit: and for those who want to know, we didn’t have that much problem since my grandparents have a fire place.

Great video as usual. You need to do a video on Snowmageddon 2010! Almost none on RU-vid at all

Let me tell you that any day that has a Weatherbox upload is a GREAT DAY ! Amazing content as always!

I remember my parents and sister telling me about this when I was a kid. They lived out in the woods, so they didnt have power for a very long time, but they faired better than most since they had a fireplace and generators

Thanks for covering a *Québécois* weather event. It was quite the important event in the history of our people. Also, love the shirt.

Gotta talk about the repeated snowstorms of 2016, 2015 or 2014 can’t quite remember which year it was anyway Boston got 100+ inches of snow and in my neighborhood park we had a mountain of snow because there was no other room for it

Would love to see more Canadian weather history! I swear I get excited every time you so much as mention a place in BC in passing.

My family is from northern ny on the st. Lawrence river. Roughly 2 hours east of montreal and they got pounded just like this no power for over a week. Complete lockdown. My mom said that if you left your house you would be arrested

Always glad to see you upload! These vids are always so insightful and full of info I can't get anywhere else! Really underrated, keep up the amazing work!

I lived in Maine at the time of this. I was very young, but it’s still a fond memory of it. My parents knew it was coming and went and bought a whole bunch of supplies and a diesel heater. I just remember laying on the floor with my dad and brother playing board games next to the heater. The power was out for over a week. I just remember looking outside and seeing the dealership across the street covered in ice. Every tree and power line was lying down. Not a human or car to be seen.

my parents were right smack in the middle of the worst parts of the storm, st jean sur richelieu had it really bad

Amazing job teaching a complex subject. Really digging your 80's weather channel graphics too.

Your music reminds me of Boards of Canada and Tangerine Dream they're two of my favorite all time musical groups. Goes great with the visuals and vibe you got going on.. That's all just wanted to say I like the music and the videos a lot, one of my favorite RU-vid channels by far!

Thanks for covering a Canadian weather event. I remember seeing news about this catastrophic ice storm when it happened.

Super cool to see Grand Forks get mentioned! The sandbag levy that broke causing the flood was on my street, on my first birthday. That flood is still talked about with much trauma still today.

My parents always talk about the red river flood of 97. So many people I know had family members who lived through it and seeing downtown grand forks flooded like that is just mindblowing. great video

Great video! One suggestion I have for a month to look at is January 1950 in the Pacific Northwest. Traditionally mild Seattle had 57" of snow, and Portland had 40" with a massive ice storm in the middle as well. From the Friday the 13th blizzard that dropped 24" of snow on Seattle in a single day to the record breaking cold and snow at the end of the month. Parts of the Willamette Valley got below -10 degrees in early February with drifts of snow 3ft to 4ft. And this is in a place that traditionally is just mild and rainy most of the winter.

You pronounced Bangor as the Mainers do! I was actually in Bangor for this storm, visiting Dad over my uni's winter break. It was also my 21st birthday, lol. I remember the poor UPS driver bringing me a present from my now-husband the day after, skidding the massive layer of ice on our sidewalk. And later chipping at that ice to remove it. So that was fun. But overall, we got off lucky. The power went out for a long while but we were over all fine

Thanks for covering the why. There are a few videos that cover what happened, but i had always been curious as to how i ended up living through one of the worst natural disasters in canadian history when i was a tiny child.. this explained it perfectly.

I remember the Winter of 1994 here in the Philly area when we had ice storm after ice storm. We missed so much school over the winter, that they extended the school year to the June 30th and extended the school day by forty minutes.

@weatherbox I most appreciate you placing the February 2022 Winter Storm event in Ohio showing the _Goldilocks Effect_ . That week, I kid you not, I hand chiseled about 1/2 mile's worth of ice with a pick to clean walkways. Our airport snow removal team at ILN had to use, essentially, a rototiller implement to break the ice on the ramps, runway, tarmac, and taxis. The ice was not nearly as thick as in 1998 Quebec, but it did break those disks on that piece of machinery. Oh, one last thing: the Amazon hub got so desperate they painted yellow lines. . .on the ice. . .to try and direct the plane and pushback traffic.

OH DAMN! My request actually happened. I lived through this in the "Triangle Noir", and it was quite an experience.

I was living north of Lewiston/Auburn and in 8th grade. Three things made this storm wildly memorable for me: 1.) we had no school & no power for two weeks 2.) I had gotten a battery powered cd player for Xmas 3.) my grandma had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's & she had moved in with us

Love this channel, proof you can make interesting, factual videos on here without being click bait. Thanks for this, love it. Found the book on Ebay for £3.50 so can't wait to read that 😊

I understand the weather more and more with each video you put out. I do dog mushing in northern Norway so it's a good thing to know a thing or two about the conditions out on the trails.

Always good to see something new from you, and this was one of the scariest weather events I can remember. Ice storms and derechos have both occurred here in upstate NY where I live and both are among my biggest weather fears. Great stuff as usual, very clearly presented.

I'd love to see one on the Portland Oregon ice storm of 1979!

Subbed. Thank you, this was cool and very informative.

This was so well explained. I learned something new today and I like it.

Just turned off my wife’s show for this lol

My baby was being born but I had to step out to watch this. Guess who’s getting split custody 😛 Worth it

My favorite man is back from Christmas break Glad to see you weather box

"Le Verglas" as we call is still very engrained in public memory despite being almost 30 years ago. We've had plenty of big ice storms since, but nothing ever topped the destruction of 98.

I was working on a consulting project for a company in Quebec when this storm hit. We had a meeting with them not long after the storm and they had a number of captivating stories.

Love your videos!! Can’t wait to see more from you!

Thank you for this video! I love seeing videos about us Quebecois! I hope one day you will cover the Déluge du Saguenay!