Storm closed schools, impeded road travel
Anglophone West, Francophone South districts shuttered due to weather conditions
It’s official - Wednesday is a snow day.
Schoolchildren’s prayers were answered early Wednesday morning, as both Anglophone School District West and Francophone School District South announced shortly after 5:30 a.m. that all schools would be closed Wednesday due to the storm.
The Fredericton Christian Academy also announced shortly after 6 a.m. that it was closing for the day due to the weather.
All of New Brunswick has been on alert for a couple of days since Environment and Climate Change Canada’s weather service issued an advisory for a messy winter storm, which began as expected in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
“Snow, at times heavy, will quickly move eastward this morning and then transition to rain by early this afternoon.” a renewed snowfall warning issued at 4:39 a.m. Wednesday stated.
“A brief period of freezing rain or ice pellets are possible during this transition.”
By late Wednesday afternoon, the weather advisories were no longer in effect.
NB Power reported some outages Wednesday, but they appeared limited in number - affecting a little more than a couple of thousands customers around the province - and certainly not to the same extent or degree as those seen in other recent weather events.
The federal weather service had advised that roads may “become difficult to navigate” as snow accumulates on surfaces.
The RCMP issued alerts on social media to that effect Wednesday morning. Among the advisories it issues was a warning about treacherous conditions on a stretch of the twinned highway going through the capital region.
“Due to weather conditions, travel not recommended by MRDC on the TCH (Trans-Canada Highway) Route 2 between Km 257 (Upper Kingsclear) and Km 339 (Jemseg),” it posted at 8:20 a.m.
“Driving conditions are extremely poor.”
The RCMP subsequently advised shortly after 2 p.m. that advisory against highway travel had been lifted as road conditions had improved.
Wednesday’s forecast for Fredericton is calling for snow and ice pellets to amount to 10 to 15 centimetres, with a risk of freezing rain in the morning. Environment and Climate Change Canada also noted that rainfall could amount to 10 millimitres.
Winds are expected from the southeast at 30 kilometres per hour, gusting at 50 km/hour and then increasing to 50 km/hour with gusts of up to 70 km/hour.
Those winds will ease in the afternoon down to 20 km/hour, it said.
The high temperature in the capital region should be about 4 C, but the wind chill Wednesday morning will be -11 C.
Rain will end in the Fredericton area Wednesday evening, giving way to then partly cloudy conditions and fog patches, the weather service said, and the temperature will rise to 7 C in the evening before starting to fall.
Don MacPherson can be contacted at ftonindependent@gmail.com.