Overview
- The federal National Canada Day Evening Show and fireworks in Ottawa were suspended then cancelled after fast-moving storms struck the capital on July 1, forcing crowds to shelter and the Snowbirds to call off their planned flyby.
- Environment Canada recorded about 118 mm of rain at the Ottawa airport during the storm, which meteorologists said broke July 1 records and fell in a short, intense period that produced strong winds and several hours of thunderstorms.
- Flooding closed stretches of Highway 417 and Woodroffe Avenue, flooded basements and downed tree branches across neighbourhoods, prompting municipal crews to begin cleanup and ask residents to report damage through the city’s 311 portal.
- Electric utilities reported peak outages in the hundreds of thousands and by July 3 aggregated totals had fallen to roughly 55,000 customers across Ontario and Quebec as Hydro One, Hydro-Québec and local crews worked on restorations.
- The storms developed during an ongoing heat wave with orange-level heat warnings in parts of Ontario and Quebec, which meteorologists say creates conditions favorable to volatile thunderstorms and keeps heightened weather risks in place.