Severe Spring Storm Causes Widespread Power Outages Across the Great Lakes Region
On Sunday morning, approximately 300,000 electricity customers in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ontario, Canada, found themselves without power due to a significant spring storm that unleashed freezing rain and sleet across the Great Lakes region. The icy conditions resulted in tree branches becoming heavily coated with ice, causing some to snap and bring down power lines on Saturday. Social media posts from a National Weather Service office in Michigan showcased the dramatic sight of trees weighed down by icicles.
As the storm progressed, over a million residents in parts of Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Wisconsin were placed under an ice storm warning early Sunday, with forecasts predicting that some areas could see ice accumulation of up to an inch. Officials in southern Michigan advised residents against traveling, urging caution, particularly on the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to the southern portion of the state, due to icy conditions and the risk of falling icicles.
In eastern Canada, authorities in Quebec issued warnings about freezing rain, predicting up to four-tenths of an inch of ice accumulation on Sunday, according to Environment Canada. Meteorologist Harold Dippman from the Weather Service office in Gaylord, Michigan, noted that this ice storm is producing more ice than typically expected. Normally, such storms in the region generate between one-tenth to a quarter of an inch of ice, but reports have indicated accumulations of half an inch to three-quarters of an inch.
This particular storm is also noteworthy for its duration. While a typical ice storm lasts between six to twelve hours, this event began on Saturday evening and is projected to persist until Sunday night. An earlier bout of wintry weather affected the area from Friday to Saturday morning, compounding the challenges faced by residents.
As of early Sunday, more than 109,000 customers in Michigan and around 10,000 in nearby Wisconsin were reported to be without power, according to the monitoring site poweroutage.us. In Ontario, around 179,000 customers were affected, as reported by Hydro One, Ontario’s primary power transmission company. The outages were primarily concentrated in central and eastern Ontario, largely attributed to ice-laden tree branches. Hydro One announced that power had already been restored to over 116,000 customers, demonstrating ongoing efforts to address the widespread outages.
