The major winter storm that hit Ontario and Quebec Saturday has continued to wreak havoc on Sunday, with thousands of people in eastern Ontario without power and police reporting dozens of collisions over the weekend.

Environment Canada said Friday to prepare for widespread power outages and dangerous travel over the weekend because of freezing rain hitting communities ranging from Bancroft to Belleville to Brockville.

It's since upgraded some regional warnings and extended them into Sunday. As of Sunday morning around 9 a.m., the agency had freezing rain warnings in place for the entirety of eastern Ontario.

Along Lake Ontario for Kingston, Belleville and Quinte West, the agency warns of up to 25 millimetres of ice accretion or more and the possibility of widespread power outages.

For a swath stretching from the border of western Quebec to Ottawa, Gatineau and communities to the south — including Perth and Smiths Falls — five to 10 millimetres of ice accretion is possible, Environment Canada said.

The freezing rain may ease for a time on Saturday, according to Environment Canada, but in some places would continue into Sunday afternoon.

"The next round of precipitation is actually associated with that Colorado low that's going to be tracking right through almost all of Ontario and Quebec, so it will likely be bringing with it a little bit more precipitation," Environment Canada meteorologist Gina Ressler said Saturday afternoon.

Kingston has declared a significant weather event, putting in its snow plans for transit and overnight parking. Cornwall and Pembroke have followed suit.

For a benchmark, the infamous 1998 ice storm brought more than eight centimetres of ice to Ottawa over multiple days.

Forecasters said Friday it would get slippery outside and tree branches could break as ice builds up, putting utilities such as electricity at risk where there are freezing rain warnings.

Around 9 a.m. on Sunday, Hydro Ottawa's outage map showed there were just two outages affecting around 13 customers in Ottawa.

But 35,000 customers were experiencing power outages in eastern Ontario around that time, according to Hydro One's outage map, particularly in communities along Lake Ontario, including Kingston, Belleville and Quinte West.

Outages are measured in customers, not people, with a large building sometimes considered a single customer.

Hydro One spokesperson Tiziana Baccega Rosa said outages across the province are being caused by tree limbs and branches weighed down by freezing rain that break and fall onto power lines.

Organizations such as Emergency Management Ontario have advice on how to prepare for and manage power outages. CBC Lite is a low-bandwidth version of this website that can help you stay informed.

Environment Canada and the Ontario Provincial Police recommend postponing non-essential travel under the freezing rain warnings.

OPP reported on X that its officers had responded to about 94 collisions across eastern Ontario between midnight and noon on Saturday.

Most of the collisions Saturday morning resulted in "no injuries or minor injuries," OPP wrote.

But they also said that one three-vehicle collision on Highway 138 north of Monkland Saturday morning was fatal, while another three-vehicle collision on Highway 416 near Spencerville just before midnight Friday resulted in at least seven people sent to hospital with injuries.