Tens of thousands still without power after Quebec blanketed with heavy snow

Tens of thousands ofHydro-Qubec customersare still without electricity Sunday afternoon afterlarge, wet snowflakes fell across Quebec earlier in the day.

More than 59,000clientswere still in the dark as of 4:00p.m. At the height of the outages, that number was more than 123,000.

Mostof the outages are in the Mauricie andQuebec City regions, followed bythe Laurentians.

Hydro-Qubecspokesperson GabrielleLeBlancsaysheavy snow weighed down tree branches, causing them to hit power lines.

Leblanc saysmore than 100 teams are working on the ground in the most affected regions to restore power as quickly as possible, but it's still too early to say when allcustomers will get their lights back.

"The damages are still being assessed on the ground so it's hard for me to say how long it willtake," Leblanc said, adding she'll have a more precise estimate later in the day.

Snowfall warnings are in effect for many areas across the province, stretching from the west to the east, where25 to 35 centimetres have already fallen in certain areas, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC).About 10 additional centimetresare possible by the time precipitation tapers off in some regions.

ECCC warns the snow, which could be mixed with rain at times, could add "considerableweight to structures and trees, making them more prone to breaking."

The agency is urging people to consider changinganynon-essential travel plans.

By 8:30 a.m., the downtown Montreal area had already received seven centimetres of snow, according to a preliminary summary released by ECCC.

Quebec City had received 10 centimetres by that time, while Trois-Rivires, Shawinigan and Rouyn-Noranda had received 18, 15 and 13, respectively.