Sunrise over Parc Cartier-Brébeuf helped to create this winter wonderland in Quebec City early Saturday. (Submitted by Benny Punnassery)Snowstorms battered Quebec, Ontario and southwestern B.C. late Saturday and into Sunday, the first official day of winter, while an evening blizzard swept through the Maritimes.

"If you're in a satellite looking down on Canada, it would be white from coast to coast to coast and it would be frozen," said David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada. "There's no area that can say that winter hasn't really arrived."

In southern Ontario, a second winter blast over the past three days brought 15 centimetres of snow as another storm moved in Saturday night and continued into Sunday, forecasters said.

By Sunday morning, about 30 to 40 flights had either been delayed or cancelled at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Most were incoming flights held up by bad weather in the United States, but by the afternoon runways were relatively clear.

On Saturday, airlines at Pearson spent the day clearing a backlog from more than 300 flights that had been cancelled after a snowstorm swept through on Friday.

New winter storm warnings from Environment Canada were issued Sunday for much of southern Ontario, southwestern Quebec and the Maritimes, as well as southern British Columbia. Freezing windchill warnings were issued for the Prairies and northern Ontario.

Up to 30 centimetres of snow were expected Sunday evening in parts of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

In the south coast of B.C., 15 centimetres fell Sunday and another 5 to 10 centimetres were expected over night, Environment Canada said.

Snowfall and blizzard warnings, along with wind warnings for Vancouver Island, have been issued for parts of the Fraser Valley.

Environment Canada meteorologist Greg Pearce said an Arctic high-pressure system has dominated the province for the past few days, bringing with it temperatures that included the coldest in Vancouver since 1990.

The temperature dropped to –15.2 C at Vancouver International Airport on Friday night, just off Vancouver's coldest recorded temperature of –17.8C in 1950.

Forecasts for some regions in B.C., such as the Yoho and Kootenay National parks, included frostbite warnings as the wind chill is expected to make it feel as low as –48 C.

2 die in storms

At least two people have died in recent days due to the weather.

Winter's icy grip on B.C. claimed a victim Saturday as an elderly Abbotsford woman was found frozen to death outside her home.

A neighbour found the body and alerted police. The discovery came a day after a homeless Vancouver woman burned to death in a makeshift cardboard shelter she was heating with candles.

In Montreal, authorities said an elderly homeless man found dead on Friday in a snowbank only steps away from two shelters likely died from exposure.

With files from the Canadian Press