Snowfall begins in northwestern Ontario as major storm coming in from Prairies makes presence felt
CBC
A spring storm forecasted to create blizzard conditions across three provinces has started to bring snow to northwestern Ontario.
Snow started falling in the Ontario region on Wednesday morning as the storm tracked north across the Canada-U.S. border. It's also affecting Saskatchewan and Manitoba, where 80 cm could fall before the system moves through, according to forecast models.
In northwestern Ontario, several communities near the Manitoba border are under winter storm warnings that project between 25 and 60 centimetres of snow could fall throughout the week.
Steven Flisfeder, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the snow had been forecasted to start falling earlier, but it doesn't change how much is expected to accumulate.
"They've had a bit of a slower start to the storm than we were expecting," Flisfeder said. "That being said, it has developed a little more, especially the winds kicking in, lifting up that snow and creating visibility hazards.
"Right now it's on pace to what we were expecting, just a little bit later than we had thought originally."
The City of Kenora declared a significant weather event, cautioning that delays for snow clearing should be expected. City officials said the priorities are main roads as well as sidewalks.
Kenora shut down its municipal public transit service on Wednesday, for the full day. The Northwestern Ontario Student Services Consortium parked all of its school buses.
Mayor Dan Reynard said road crews had been out trying to stay on top of the situation, with an afternoon pause in the snowfall helping those efforts
Reynard said people in the city are ready to be done with winter.
"Every day you wake up with the hope that the sun's going to shine, it's going to be warm, grass is going to start showing. And every day it's like it's still damn cold and it's dreary," Reynard said. "I think people are just definitely down. They just want the winter to be over, especially when you consider basically from January on, not only did we get a lot of snow, it's been damn cold."
As of early in the afternoon, there had not been any significant highway closures in the region.
Corinne Hildebrandt, who lives in Kenora just north of Highway 17A, said the storm started to make its impact throughout Wednesday morning.
"The wind is definitely picking up. Visibility is getting poorer," she said.
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