Montréal winters do not stop deliveries, but they change what a delivery costs in time. The roads are slower on a storm day, parking is harder on every day, the light is gone by the end of the afternoon, and some products simply do not survive an hour in an unheated van. Retailers who plan for it keep their promises. Retailers who treat January like October end up apologizing in a stream of emails.
The short version
- Widen delivery windows from December to March, and widen them most for the first big storm.
- Know which of your products freeze, crack or lose power in the cold, and tell your courier.
- Write a storm-day rule before the storm: who decides, what moves first, and what customers are told.
- Plan for parking, not only for roads. A cleared street can still have nowhere legal to stop.
Winter by the calendar
The season is not uniform. The problems arrive in a rough order, and it helps to plan each stretch for what it is likely to bring.
| When | What changes | Planning move |
|---|---|---|
| Late November | Winter tires become mandatory on December 1 for most passenger vehicles registered in Québec. Holiday volume is already building. | Confirm vehicles are ready, and review packaging for products that cannot freeze. |
| December | Peak volume, first storms, sunset a little after 4 p.m. around the solstice. | Wider windows, earlier cutoffs, and a storm-day rule in writing. See peak season planning. |
| January and February | The deepest cold. Freezing risk is highest, and snow banks narrow every street. | Protect freeze-sensitive goods and allow extra minutes in dense neighbourhoods. February adds Valentine's Day. |
| March | Freeze and thaw cycles, ice under slush, potholes. Winter tires stay mandatory until March 15 (inclusive). | Do not relax the windows early; some of the year's slipperiest conditions can arrive in March. |
What the cold does to goods
A vehicle left parked between stops is not a thermos. Anything with high water content can freeze and split its container: bottled drinks, sauces, cosmetics, liquid soaps. Some plants and cut flowers suffer cold damage well before a hard freeze. Batteries and electronics lose performance and should be allowed to warm before they are charged or switched on.
The point is not that these goods cannot move in winter. It is that the courier needs to know which ones they are, so they can be sequenced early on a route, kept out of a cold cargo area, or handed over promptly. Wine and spirits, florists and specialty grocers are the categories where this matters most, and it belongs in the same briefing as the delivery address.
What the snow does to parking
When people picture a snow day they picture slow roads. The harder problem for a delivery is the curb. Snow banks take parking spaces away, and once a street is scheduled for clearing, temporary no-parking signs go up and vehicles left there can be towed. The City of Montréal's Info-Neige service shows which sectors are scheduled for snow clearing and when.
For a driver this means the legal stopping place is farther from the door on exactly the days when carrying is slowest. A stop that takes a few minutes in July can take noticeably longer in February. The practical response is not to hope for the best but to widen windows in dense areas and to put a stop on the route only once, not twice.
The outdoor staircases that are such a feature of Montréal's plexes are the other half of this: see delivering in Montréal for how stairs, lanes and entrances affect a stop. In winter the right instruction is often "leave it at the base of the stairs, and send a photo."
Short days change the job
Around the winter solstice the sun sets a little after 4 p.m. in Montréal. A route that finishes at 5:30 in June finishes in the dark in December, and a dark street is harder to navigate: house numbers disappear, entrances are not lit, and a drop-off photo is harder to read.
- Ask customers to leave an exterior light on for evening deliveries, or say so in the delivery notification.
- Schedule time-critical stops earlier in the route, while the light lasts.
- Consider whether late-afternoon windows are worth offering at all in December and January.
Decide the storm-day rule before the storm
The worst time to design a policy is during a blizzard. Agree on it in October, and write it down in a way that a dispatcher, a driver and a customer service agent would all understand the same way:
- Who decides.A named person at the retailer and a named contact at the courier, so a delay is a decision made by someone, not drift.
- What moves first.Time-critical and freeze-sensitive deliveries go ahead of routine ones. Everything else can slide a day without anyone being harmed.
- What customers are told, and when.One message, sent early, with the new expectation: "Because of the storm your order will arrive tomorrow between 10 and 2." Silence is the expensive option.
- What happens to the backlog.A route that slips a day has twice the work the next day. Decide in advance whether extra capacity is added or whether windows shift.
A note on the vehicles themselves
Winter tires are mandatory from December 1 to March 15 inclusive for most motorized road vehicles registered in Québec, with some categories of vehicle and some situations exempt. If you use a courier, it is reasonable to ask how their vehicles are equipped; if you use your own vehicle for deliveries, the rule applies to you too. For questions about a specific vehicle, the SAAQ is the authority.
Frequently asked questions
Will my delivery be cancelled if there is a snowstorm?
It depends on the storm and on the arrangement with your courier. Most storm days produce delay rather than cancellation, which is why a storm-day rule is worth having: it settles in advance what moves first and what customers are told.
Should I add extra time to delivery windows in winter?
In dense neighbourhoods and on days with snow or ice, yes. Where parking is easy, a standard window usually holds. If you can only widen some windows, widen the ones in the central boroughs first.
Can flowers, wine or other temperature-sensitive goods be delivered in winter?
Yes, with attention to how long they sit in a vehicle and in what sequence they are delivered. Tell your courier which items are affected so they can be delivered early on a route and not left between stops.
What does the winter tire rule apply to?
Most motorized road vehicles registered in Québec, between December 1 and March 15 inclusive. Some vehicle types and situations are exempt. Check the SAAQ for the rule that applies to a particular vehicle.
Running winter routes? Tell us about the products that cannot freeze and the windows that cannot slip when you request a quote.