Rain coming to Maritimes on heels of snow, freezing rain
CBC News | Posted: January 4, 2015 1:27 PM | Last Updated: January 4, 2015
A snowy morning, leads into a sloppy, freezy afternoon and a rainy night
As temperatures continue to rise, most of the Maritime region will see rain — sometimes heavy — after a day of snow, freezing rain and ice pellets that created a number of travel difficulties in the region and beyond.
Delays and cancellations plagued the region's major airports during this busy travel weekend. Flights within eastern Canada, including Ontario and Quebec, were the worst affected.
Runway crews at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport dealt with freezing rain for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and many flights in and out were still delayed or cancelled as of 4:30 p.m. The situation was the same at the Charlottetown and Fredericton airports.
"The good news is things are changing over to rain," said Ashley Gallant, airport spokeswoman.
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Gallant says passengers should continue to check their flight's status online or by phone before heading to the airport.
RCMP are urging motorists to take extra precautions due to the weather and changing road conditions.
"Today is a prime example of how our Maritime climate can affect our roadways," said Cpl. Greg Church of the Halifax District RCMP.
RCMP responded to several collisions and "countless vehicles off the road in ditches and stuck in snow and ice on both our main highways and secondary roads," said Church.
He asks drivers to stay off the roads. If you have to drive, slow down, allow extra time to reach your destination and ensure there's extra stopping distance between your vehicle and the one ahead of you.
Marine Atlantic cancelled its sailings between North Sydney and Port Aux Basques for the day. The Tancook Island Ferry in Nova Scotia was also tied up for most of the day.
Maritime Bus faced delays and cancellations Sunday, but Mike Cassidy, president of Maritime Bus, says his company was busy Saturday.
"We found in our system a number of passengers elected to travel yesterday with the impending storm," he said.
Cassidy said Monday also looks like it will be a popular day for bus travel.
"We are much busier than we expected at this time of year."
A freezing rain warning continues for most of central and western New Brunswick, while northern areas of the province remain under winter storm warnings.
Central and southern Nova Scotia are still under a heavy rainfall warning. Snow in the morning will turn to ice pellets or freezing rain, then as much as 40 millimetres of rain may fall as the temperature rises above 0 C. Rain will continue into Monday morning.
Environment Canada warns "the frozen ground has a reduced ability to absorb this rainfall" and that "localized flooding in low-lying areas is possible."
A Les Suêtes wind warning is also still in effect for Inverness County in Cape Breton. Gusts of up to 120 km/hr are expected.
But Inverness County Coun. Alfred Poirier says the storm wasn't too bad.
"Overall, I think it's just a sneezer for us, you know, it's about a 100, 110 [km/hr] at the most," said Poirier.
"We're getting a little bit of snow, blowing snow, but you can see, you know there's still traffic moving along and so it's not as bad as it was predicted so far."
Meanwhile, P.E.I. — the only province in Canada not under any type of Environment Canada weather advisory — will still be affected by the same weather system. Five to 10 centimetres of snow and ice pellets are expected into the afternoon with rain beginning later in the day.
The Confederation Bridge has issued an advisory that restrictions may be put in place later today due to high wind conditions.
Maritimers are taking the storm in stride, however.
"I think it's great, just another New Brunswick winter. Anybody from New Brunswick would know that last winter was really bad so, so this is really nothing compared to last winter," said Fredericton's Rob Willcott.
Tim Hague, also of Fredericton, said, "I was just out for a run this morning. Beautiful snowy day. It's awesome. As long as the temperature isn't too cold, I really can't complain, this isn't too bad. I can still run without too big of a jacket on, so I'm good."
Payton Armstrong agrees, but says he's worried about people living on the streets.
"I just feel sorry for people who live outside. We only got one shelter, do we not? I was in the shelter last year at this time. I guess in this city we shouldn't have that happen, should we?"
In Halifax, Nancy O'Neil took extra precautions before walking with her dog to her mother's house.
"Oh we just have our LED lights on. I have one on my arm and the dog has one around his neck, just for visibility because the wind is quite high. But it's fluffy snow right now, so we want to get there and back before the rain comes," she said.