A storm that blew in from the United States left about 49,000 Quebecers and 30,000 Ontario residents without power on Sunday.

High winds felled lines in a broad band across central Ontario, while in Quebec, the Laurentians region, north of Montreal, and the Gaspé were particularly hard hit. Outages were reported across the province, including in Montreal and in Quebec City.

Wind felled trees in Ontario, knocking down power lines and causing a tree to smash this car.
(CBC)

About 1,000 homes in Toronto lost power, but service was restored by early Sunday evening, a Toronto Hydro spokeswoman said.

Hydro One, the Ontario power distributor, said the worst-hit areas include Georgian Bay, Bracebridge, Huntsville, and North Bay-Nippissing.

Hydro-Quebec was not able to predict when power will be restored. A spokesman for Hydro One said most customers would be able to throw the switch by Sunday night, but some would have to wait until Monday.

Winds gusting to 100 kilometres an hour knocked lines down. 

The same storm system pummelled the Atlantic provinces, causing power outages in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and forced ferry cancellations in Newfoundland.

On Saturday, high winds had knocked out electricity to hundreds of thousands of people in the states of Maine, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York.

Atlantic Canada in path

"A wide swath of a low pressure system is moving to the northeast and will sweep across Atlantic Canada in the next 24 hours," CBC meteorologist Teresa Fisico said on Sunday afternoon.

The Marine Atlantic ferry service warned passengers to call ahead to check for cancellations and other schedule changes, as ferry service has already been affected in Newfoundland around Port aux Basques and Bay L'Argent.

High wind warnings were in effect for the southern and western shores of Newfoundland, with some areas told to expect gusts of 140 km/h. The provincial Transportation Department warned motorists to avoid those areas if they could.

Small outages hit N.B., N.S.

Strong winds left more than 3,000 customers of the New Brunswick Power Corporation without electricity. The outages were mostly in the Kennebecasis Valley near the southern New Brunswick city of Saint John. Crews said it should only take three or four hours to restore service.

There were also a few scattered outages in the south end of Halifax, which were later repaired.

Gusts up to 100 km/h were forecast for most of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

With files from the Canadian Press