January 1998 North American ice storm

The ice storm affected a large part of eastern Ontario, southwest Quebec, and New York state. This map shows the accumulation of freezing rain in those areas.
2 in of ice on a twig, illustrating the impact.
A T-shirt sold in Ottawa, Ontario, a region affected by the 1998 North American Ice Storm.

Massive combination of five smaller successive ice storms in January 1998 that struck a relatively narrow swath of land from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in Canada, and bordering areas from northern New York to central Maine in the United States.

- January 1998 North American ice storm

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Eastern Ontario

Secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies in a wedge-shaped area between the Ottawa River and St. Lawrence River.

Eastern Ontario
Downtown Ottawa
Thousand Islands
Queens Theological Hall

One such large storm caused vast power outages and affected the local economy, known as the 1998 Ice Storm.

Winter storm

Event in which wind coincides with varieties of precipitation that only occur at freezing temperatures, such as snow, mixed snow and rain, or freezing rain.

Heavy snowfall and strong winds during a 2016 blizzard, New York City
National Guard members clear a road of fallen trees after a February 2021 winter storm in Putnam County, West Virginia.
Snow storm in Modena, Italy
Wet snow and sleet during a winter storm, on the deck of RFA Tidespring south of Plymouth in the English Channel.
Coated in ice, power and telephone lines sag and often break, resulting in power outages.
Crabapple covered in icy glaze due to freezing rain. Ice storms often coat many surfaces. Severe ice storms, which may occur in spring, can kill plant life.
2008 Chinese winter storm in Hefei, Anhui Province, China

Notable ice storms include an El Niño-related North American ice storm of 1998 that affected much of eastern Canada, including Montreal and Ottawa, as well as upstate New York and part of New England.

Freezing rain

Rain maintained at temperatures below freezing by the ambient air mass that causes freezing on contact with surfaces.

Temperature versus height diagram for different types of precipitation. The red line shows how freezing rain forms, from snow through the warm layer and then into the "supercooled stage".
Echoes at 1.5 km altitude at the top with strong contamination from the bright band (yellows). The vertical cut at the bottom show that this strong return is only above ground (Source: Environment Canada).
Freezing ice on aircraft wing
Tree downed by a thick layer of glaze in downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia
Glaze on a tree in La Malbaie, Quebec
Ice on coniferous tree in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland
A birch tree is badly bent under a thick layer of glaze ice in Celje, Slovenia
Aftermath of freezing rain in Moscow Oblast, Russia, December 2010
Power outages due to the weight of ice on lines or overhanging tree limbs

One particularly severe ice storm struck eastern Canada and northern parts of New York and New England in the North American ice storm of 1998.

Boucherville

City in the Montérégie region in Quebec, Canada.

Sainte-Famille Church
Statue of Pierre Boucher at the National Assembly
Statue of Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine in Boucherville

Boucherville was heavily affected by the January 1998 North American ice storm.

Mount Royal

Large intrusive rock hill or small mountain in the city of Montreal, immediately west of Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

McGill College Avenue going from Downtown Montreal to Mount Royal.
Map of Mount Royal.
Cross on top of Mount Royal during daytime.
Mount Royal Funicular Railway, around 1900.
Night procession by the Montreal Snow Shoe Club on Mount Royal, 1873.
Cross-country skiing on Mount Royal in the 1920s.
People come to Mount Royal for tobogganning on the former ski slopes.
Mount Royal's Tam-Tams gathering.
Mount Royal transmitter tower
Aerial view of Downtown Montreal as seen from above Mount Royal.
The view of Downtown Montreal from the Kondiaronk Belvedere and the Chalet du Mont Royal in winter.

The lush forest has been badly damaged, both by Mayor Drapeau's so-called morality cuts of the 1950s and by the Ice Storm of 1998, but has since largely recovered.

1985 United States–Canada tornado outbreak

Major tornado outbreak that occurred in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, on May 31, 1985.

Tracks of all tornadoes that touched down during the outbreak
Animation of visible images of the storms taken by the GOES 6 satellite.
Remains of the Niles Park Plaza shopping center, which was leveled at F5 intensity.
Surface map on the morning of May 31, 1985. Note the "triple-point" moving east toward southern Ontario
F5 damage to a trucking plant in Wheatland.
GOES visible satellite image as the tornado was entering Barrie
King City Doppler at 4:20pm; two major tornadoes are on the ground here

This tornado outbreak ranks among the Southern Ontario tornado outbreak of 2005 and the 1998 Ice Storm as one of the most costly weather disasters to strike Ontario.

CFMB

Multilingual Canadian radio station located in Montreal, Quebec, owned by Evanov Communications.

Logo from 2015 to 2021

The 1410 kHz transmitter was briefly reactivated in 1998 when the station lent it to CJAD, which lost all four of its towers in January's ice storm.

Hydro-Québec

Public utility that manages the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the Canadian province of Quebec, as well as the export of power to portions of the Northeast United States.

Montreal Light, Heat and Power linemen.
The spillway at the Robert-Bourassa generating station can deal with a water flow twice as large as the Saint Lawrence River. Inaugurated in 1979 the 5,616 MW generating station was at the heart of a network of 8 hydroelectric stations known as the James Bay Project.
the Rupert River diversion will channel part of the natural flow of the river (orange on the map) to the Robert-Bourassa Reservoir.
The North American ice storm of January 1998 left 1.4 million Hydro-Québec customers in the dark for up to five weeks.
Hydro-Québec generation and main transmission network, as of 2008.
The Hydro-Québec Building is a landmark of Montreal's downtown.
The Daniel-Johnson Dam on the Manicouagan River, supplying the Manic-5 hydro plant.
The Micoua substation on the North Shore of Quebec. This facility converts 315 kV power coming from five hydro plant to 735 kV. This TransÉnergie facility is one of the main nodes of the 11422 km long 735 kV network.
A rectifier at the Outaouais substation, located in L'Ange-Gardien. The 1,250 MW back-to-back HVDC tie links the Quebec grid with Ontario's Hydro One network.
An Hydro-Québec employee carries out the replacement of an underground transformer in Montreal.
Electric Circuit level 2 charger in use in Montréal
The TM4 electric engine was developed by Hydro-Québec.
Hydro-Québec operates The Electric Circuit, the largest EV charging network in Quebec and Eastern Ontario.
The northern pike (Esox lucius) is more prevalent today in the Robert-Bourassa Reservoir than it was before the flooding of the reservoir. The increase of this population has been counterbalanced by a decline in the walleye (Stizostedion vitreum) population.
The caribou population near major reservoirs in northern Quebec has increased between 1970 and 2000.
Of all Cree communities, Chisasibi was most affected by the James Bay hydroelectric development project Crees living on Fort George island resettled to the new village on the left bank of La Grande River in 1980–1981.
Evolution of Hydro-Québec residential rates (turquoise) and the Quebec Consumer price index (dark blue) between 1998 and 2011.
Electric heating accounts for more than half of the electricity used by residential customers in Quebec, according to Hydro-Québec.
A Hydro-Québec digital power meter.
Rio Tinto Alcan's Laterriere smelter in Saguenay. Large industrial users, especially the metallurgy and the pulp and paper industries, use 40.6% of all electricity sold in Quebec.
The Smurfit-Stone paper mill in La Tuque.
Part of the electricity used in Boston comes from the remote dams in the James Bay area.

In the North American ice storm of 1998, five days of freezing rain collapsed 600 km of high voltage power lines and over 3000 km of medium and low voltage distribution lines in southern Quebec.

Bell CH-146 Griffon

Multi-role utility helicopter designed by Bell Helicopter Textron as a variant of the Bell 412EP for the Canadian Armed Forces.

A CH-146 Griffon from 430 Tactical Helicopter Squadron
RCAF CH-146 Griffon in SAR markings
The first CH-146 Griffon arrives at 417 Squadron, CFB Cold Lake. It is parked on the flightline with the CH-118 it is to replace.
CH-146 Griffon in Afghanistan armed with a Dillon Aero M134D "Minigun"
U.S. Army National Guard paratroopers from 2nd Battalion, 20th Special Forces Group and 116th Air Support Operations Squadron board a CH-146 Griffon.
400px
Copilot's position
Closeup of starboard side C6 GPMG

The CH-146 have also played a major role during the great ice storm of 1998.

Depauville, New York

Hamlet and census-designated place in the southern region of the town of Clayton, within Jefferson County, New York, United States.

Separate municipal buildings for the town and village of Monroe in Orange County

Depauville in January 1998 witnessed one of the most destructive natural disasters that Jefferson County had ever endured, the Ice Storm of 1998, 36 hours of freezing rain that left damaged homes and properties, impassable roadways and many people powerless and hungry for weeks.