Weather bomb blasts through Atlantic Canada

Residents of Atlantic Canada woke up this morning from a messy mix of winter weather overnight to a blustery start to the work week, as a powerful storm system — known as a 'weather bomb' — passes through the region today.

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A system is called a 'weather bomb' when the pressure at the center of the storm drops by at least 24 millibars (mb) in 24 hours. In this case, the central pressure is expected to have dropped by exactly 24 mb in just the 12 hours between Sunday evening and this morning, and it is expected to drop by another 25 mb by Tuesday morning.

This system has already brought rain, freezing rain and about 5-10cm of snow to parts of the Maritimes. This extreme drop in pressure is kicking up some incredible winds too, gusting up to 90 km/h in P.E.I., 100 km/h in Nova Scotia (including Cape Breton Island), and potentially up to 110 km/h or higher in Newfoundland.

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Flights into and out of Halifax Stanfield International Airport are suffering from delays and cancellations this morning, and with more snow expected and the high winds, more travel disruptions are likely before the storm has passed.

Further snowfall amounts of 2-5 cm in P.E.I. and mainland Nova Scotia, and 5-10 cm in Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland are expected by Tuesday morning, and adding any snow to these windy conditions could easily escalate the existing 'wind warnings' into 'blizzard warnings'. Residents are being advised to keep an ear out for updates to the weather forecasts.

These conditions are expected to last throughout the day today and tonight for P.E.I. and Nova Scotia, and they will persist for much of Tuesday in Newfoundland as well.

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