Thousands without power as N.S. hit by freezing rain, high winds

A weather system that has brought days of heavy rainfall and freezing rain to parts of Nova Scotia is now packing high winds and snow.

The storm knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses on Thursday.

Environment Canada issued wind warnings, winter storm warnings and blowing snow advisories for parts of the eastern mainland and Cape Breton.

Rainfall and freezing rain warnings ended earlier Thursday, however the widespread rainfall totals of 100 to 200 mm across eastern areas of the province since Monday resulted in pockets of flooding, including in the Sydney area. 

Sydney resident Jordan Musycsyn was up all night, running sump pumps to keep up with the water flowing into his basement.

"I had to put a third pump in, cause two weren't keeping up," he said. "And we still got about two and a half inches around the entire basement. That's with three pumps running constantly. And they're powerful pumps too, I got the good ones."

CBC meteorologist Ryan Snoddon said the system will be a snow and wind event moving forward.

"The winds will remain strong throughout Thursday and Thursday night. The strongest northerly winds gusting 80 to 100 km/h will be in the east of the province, however we'll see widespread wind gusts of 60 to 80 km/h elsewhere."

Snoddon said with a round of snow moving into eastern areas of the province late Thursday and continuing into Friday, blowing snow and reduced visibility will become an issue for those travelling on the roads, especially in the northeast.

The winds will slowly subside throughout the day on Friday, he said, however blowing snow will remain an issue for open and exposed areas in the east of Nova Scotia into Friday evening.

At one point, nearly 24,000 Nova Scotia Power customers were without electricity Thursday afternoon.

"Those high winds that we've been watching with the storm came through really quickly this morning," Matt Drover, the storm lead with the utility, told CBC Radio's Information Morning Halifax.

Earlier this week, more than 70,000 Nova Scotia Power customers lost their power during a wind and rain storm.

Hundreds of people in the Halifax area are living in tent encampments. This week, a volunteer group at a site in Lower Sackville urged people to stop dropping off items before storms.

Samantha Ashton, the vice-president of the Gated Community Association, said "carloads" of donations are showing up, often with items that aren't useful, just as volunteers and residents are trying to prepare for incoming bad weather.

Marine Atlantic has cancelled its sailings for Thursday night between Port aux Basques, N.L., and North Sydney, N.S., as well as its 11:45 a.m. sailings on Friday between Port aux Basques and North Sydney.