Flights cancelled as storm brings freezing rain, ice pellets to Waterloo Region

Environment Canada is continuing a freezing rain warning for Waterloo Region and Wellington County Wednesday evening. 

The rain is expected to "creep northward" said the weather agency, and eventually the freezing rain will turn to rain in the evening hours.

However, all that rain will turn to snow overnight or early Thursday thanks to colder air from the north. Between 2 to 5 cm of snow is expected Thursday morning.

Slick roads and ice pellets

Roads turned slick Wednesday morning as a severe winter storm coated cars in freezing rain, pummelled people with ice pellets and created slick road conditions in Waterloo Region.

The storm delayed bus routes to more than 50 schools in Waterloo Region. The Wellington-Dufferin school district canceled buses in Centre Wellington, North Wellington, Dufferin County, the Town of Erin, and the Town of Rockwood. 

• CBC KW's StormCentre keeps you up to date with cancellations, closures

​It also affected flights in and out of the Region of Waterloo International Airport:

• American Airlines flight 3278 departing from Waterloo Region heading to Chicago at 15:00 has been cancelled

• American Airlines flight 3423 departing from Chicago to arriving in Waterloo Region at 21:57 has been cancelled

The wild winter weather is expected continue, meterologists warn.

"It's a very complicated system," said Geoff Coulson, a severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada.

"It's also a massive system, with respect to a whole variety of precipitation types occurring all the way from the American Midwest to parts of Atlantic Canada and southern Quebec."

Coulson said somewhere between 15-20 millimetres of rain will fall Wednesday, but the forecast high is 1 C, which means it could become freezing rain with little notice.