Canadians shiver and shovel as wintry blast felt coast to coast
Canada could see first cross-country white Christmas since 1971
Last Updated: Monday, December 22, 2008 | 4:40 PM PT
CBC News
A woman makes her way along a street in Montreal after more than 20 centimetres of snow fell in the city over the weekend. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)Winter weather wreaked havoc in Canada's coastal regions Monday, while other parts of the country were still digging out after weekend snowstorms.
Snow and freezing temperatures blew blizzard conditions into Atlantic Canada. And on the West Coast, Vancouver Island and Vancouver braced for more snow.
"Bad weather is affecting everyone across the country. Any storm systems beginning in the West are being directed by the jet stream in the East," said Johanna Wagstaffe of the CBC Weather Centre in Toronto.
Nova Scotia Power was reporting about 89,000 customers without power in several parts of the province on Monday.
"Crews will gain ground as we move forward," Margaret Murphy, a spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Power, told CBC News. "We will start to make progress" in restoring power, she said.
Winds gusting to more than 100 km/h had hampered some hydro restoration efforts, Murphy said. In some areas of the province, it is unsafe for crews to go up in their buckets to do repairs, she said.
In P.E.I, the weather brought much of the island to a standstill.
Pedestrians make their way along a snowy North Vancouver sidewalk on Monday. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press) More than 15,000 Maritime Electric customers were without power for much of Monday, but by evening the utility reported the figure had dropped to about 350.
"We still have some scattered outages, but we're working very quickly to try to restore that power," Kim Griffin, a Maritime Electric spokeswoman told CBC News.
In New Brunswick, a thick blanket of snow overnight left thousands of people waking up to power failures. But by Monday afternoon, NB Power reported just 51 incidents affecting 1,387 customers across the province.
Outages in Fredericton dropped to 354 after topping more than 5,000 earlier in the day. The highest number of remaining outages was in Sackville, where NB Power reported 665.
Storm surge warnings were issued for coastal areas in northern Nova Scotia and P.E.I. Hurricane-force winds gusting to 120 km/h were also being reported in Yarmouth County, N.S.
Bridges, roads, ferries shut down
A blizzard warning remained in effect by Environment Canada for Newfoundland's west coast. Meanwhile, New Brunswick was seeing some respite from the stormy conditions.
"Blizzard conditions have been cancelled through the province but there is a warning about storm systems later in the day," the CBC's Catherine Harrop reported.
A plow works to clear snow in Charlottetown on Monday. (CBC) "Things are starting to be open again. Some banks are still closed. It still pays to call ahead and if you don't have to go out, don't," Harrop said.
The Confederation Bridge, which connects New Brunswick to P.E.I., was closed to all traffic for several hours because of high winds, but was eventually reopened for cars and vans only. Restrictions remain in place barring vehicles such as buses, trucks and trailers.
Marine Atlantic has also tied up its ferries, which connect southern Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.
Parts of the Trans-Canada Highway were closed to traffic in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick due to poor visibility.
On the West Coast, snowfall warnings continued for Vancouver Island and coastal B.C. Vancouver was expected to receive two centimetres of snow on Monday.
An Arctic high-pressure system has dominated British Columbia for the past few days and has brought the coldest temperatures in Vancouver since 1990, said Greg Pearce, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.
The Vancouver Police Department and the Nanaimo RCMP were asking the public to stay off the roads during the extreme weather conditions.
Numerous streets in the city were closed off and some drivers abandoned their cars at the side of roads rather than continuing to drive in the snow.
The situation on the West Coast is going to translate into more bad weather for much of the rest of the country, Wagstaffe said.
"The storm that hit Vancouver and Victoria on Monday is going to hit Ontario and the Great Lakes late Tuesday afternoon, bringing snow and freezing rain," she said.
"The Maritimes will see that storm arrive on Wednesday with roughly the same intensity, dropping five to 10 centimetres of snow across the region."
Flight backlog
Several pre-schools, daycares, other community services and government offices were remained closed due to the severe weather in the Atlantic provinces.
As a heavy snowstorm continued to pummel the south coast of British Columbia, police warned the public to stay home because of poor road conditions and extreme weather. (CBC) Halifax's Stanfield International Airport was reporting delays and cancellations. Officials at the airport said some of the delays were being caused due to airlines trying to catch up from the bad weather that hit central Canada late last week.
More than 300 flights were cancelled at Pearson International Airport in Toronto after a snowstorm swept through the region on Friday. It caused significant delays and backlog across the country.
Many flights at the Vancouver International Airport were either cancelled or delayed on Sunday, forcing 3,000 people to spend the night at the terminal.
The airlines there said they're adding more planes to deal with the backlog, but the delays could take days to clear up.
Forecasters are predicting that Canada will have its first coast-to-coast white Christmas since 1971.
Heavy snow, winds and freezing temperatures blanketed much of the country as winter made its official debut on Sunday.
"This year it's guaranteed that all the country will see a white Christmas. We have snow on the ground everywhere and it's going to stay into Christmas Day," Wagstaffe said.
"And cold temperatures are expected to hang around well into New Year's," Wagstaffe added.
A plow tries to clean up on Monday after an overnight blizzard in Fredericton. (CBC) Red warning labels stretched right across the government agency's weather map, showing snowfall warnings and Arctic outflow in B.C. and flesh-freezing wind chill warnings for the Prairies and northern Ontario.
Alberta was the only province where Environment Canada did not issue a weather warning for Monday morning.
Toronto has extended its declaration of an extreme cold weather alert with temperatures expected to drop to –12 C.
Meanwhile in Montreal, residents were still digging out from 20 centimetres of snow that fell on the city over the weekend.
The city is trying to step up its snow removal so people can travel safely during the holidays, said Marcel Tremblay, a city executive committee member.
With files from the Canadian Press
