No Lunar Eclipse for Montreal - just heavy rain

The full lunar eclipse early this morning, October 8, as captured by NASA.

Those in southern Quebec hoping to see the sensational celestial show put on by the sun, earth and moon were thwarted by clouds and rain this morning. The second full lunar eclipse of 2014 started at 4:15AM ET this morning, visible across North America, and reached its peak at around 6:15AM. The full hunters moon turned blood red as it passed into the earths shadow. The next full lunar eclipse will be on April 4, 2015. Unfortunately the other story of the day stopped us from seeing any sign of the moon here in Montreal. A strengthening low pressure area is lifting from the Great Lakes north toward Hudson's Bay today while producing a large area of heavy rain and even a few rumbles of thunder. Montreal has had around 15mm of rain since 2am. Combine that with yesterdays thunderstorms and we are over 25mm (1 inch) for the 24 hour period. The storms on Tuesday came on suddenly in Montreal around the middle portion of the day with rapidly darkening skies, heavy rain, gusty winds and numerous reports of pea to marble size hail. We returned back to sunshine just as quickly.

Dark skies and heavy rain stopped us from seeing the lunar eclipse in Montreal. The rain also slowed the morning commute to a crawl with poor visibility and some flooding reported. Above: Highway 20 at Woodland. (ValleyWX)

The rain this morning will taper off shortly across southern Quebec, but with the risk of more showers or a thunderstorm this afternoon along a trailing cold front. Winds will increase as well this morning here in the St. Lawrence Valley between 30-50km/h with gusts up to 70km/h possible this afternoon. Temperatures will be rather mild today around 16C (61F) in Montreal but drop this evening into the upper single digits under partly cloudy skies. On Thursday expect a mostly cloudy, windy fall day with some showers around, cool at 11C (52F). The weather will clear out for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday weekend but be cool with highs around 12C (54F) and lows down to 3C (38F) with the risk of frost in southern Quebec and Ontario.