after fierce Christmas Day winds brought down power lines across the province.

鈥淲e are working very hard,鈥� Nova Scotia Power spokesperson Sasha Irving told 麻豆传媒 Channel Tuesday morning. 鈥淲e have over 650 people working on this storm today.鈥�

Lashed by wind gusts of more than 100 km/h Monday as a massive storm system battered Atlantic Canada with a mix of rain, snow and freezing rain, tens of thousands of Nova Scotians were forced to spend Christmas Day in the dark.

鈥淲e had 158,000 customers off at our peak -- we鈥檙e making some excellent progress,鈥� Nova Scotia Power president and CEO Karen Hutt told 麻豆传媒 Tuesday afternoon. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been just a vicious storm and it has dropped damage all along the way, so at this point, we have crews spread all across the province.鈥�

Hutt said that she expects 90 per cent of customers to have power back by 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. The vast majority of Nova Scotians, she added, should be reconnected to the grid by noon Wednesday.

鈥淲e will have crews literally working all through the night,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e will not stop until the last customer is on.鈥�

Weather conditions, fortunately, have since stabilized in Nova Scotia. Halifax, for example, is expected to have a daytime high of -2 C, though winds will continue to gust at up to 50 km/h. In areas that are still without power, has opened comfort centres where people can get warm and have a meal and advised people to be especially careful of carbon monoxide when using alternative heating sources.

鈥淭here have been events in the past that have tragic results where people are looking to warm up as a result of power outages,鈥� Emergency Management Office Executive Director Paul Mason told CTV Atlantic.

Crews from New Brunswick have also arrived to help, though the extent of the storm damage means that the work to restore power will be painstaking, Irving said.

鈥淏ecause of the significantly high winds yesterday, they鈥檙e seeing lots of downed trees on lines, broken branches, and in some localized areas we鈥檙e seeing broken poles, which is unusual,鈥� Irving explained. 鈥淚t really goes to show the significance of the winds yesterday and the impact they had on the system.鈥�

A interactive map of the outage is available on .

The other Atlantic provinces were also hit by a storm Christmas Day, though they have not reported significant power outages.

With files from CTV Atlantic鈥檚 Allan April and The Canadian Press