TORONTO - If Canadians think they deserve a break from the brutal winter, a top weather forecaster is cautioning the winter weary not to put their parkas in mothballs any time soon.

As the Atlantic region got hit with freezing rain and central Canada endured another dump of heavy wet snow Wednesday, a senior Environment Canada senior climatologist reflected the feeling of many people longing for a bout of spring fever.

"It really is the winter from Hell," Dave Phillips said.

Like reading from a well-worn script, he went on to describe the latest system from the U.S.

"This particular weather system is very moist (air) from the Gulf of Mexico, and it even got a resupply from the Atlantic, and it is spreading its misery, really, across eastern Canada."

By way of proving that remark, freezing rain Wednesday made roads slick in parts of Nova Scotia despite the efforts of salt trucks. Classes were cancelled in many parts of the province.

Elsewhere in the Maritimes, snow fell in parts of New Brunswick, although the forecast also called for freezing rain or just rain, all making for another messy witches brew of weather.

On Prince Edward Island, schools were closed in the western part of the province, while classes continued in the eastern region.

Central Canada experienced its own familiar form of freezing frustration. Snow and freezing rain made life difficult for commuters across southern Ontario with a storm that dumped up to 20-centimetres across the region.

Once again, there were dozens of cancellations at Toronto's Pearson Airport, with at least 200 flights affected through Wednesday.

"It's not really the worst (storm) of the season," Phillips admitted, "But it really is the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. There's a kind of weather rage, (with) a collective crying of 'uncle!'," he said.

But there are always exceptions. On the slushy streets of Toronto a philosophical 27-year-old computer technology worker, Sharjael Uqaili, took it all in stride. "I don't drive so I don't really care. It's just another winter, I mean you come to expect this," he said.

Another Torontonian, 26-year-old insurance adjuster, Katie Strokan, did not agree. "It would be nice if spring would just come," she said. "We're ready for it."

Phillips agrees. "We don't care that we are the Great White North, the land of ice and snow... it's now getting us down... we should be getting some good weather, some fair weather."

But, of course, we're not.

Even the official arrival of spring on March 20 doesn't guarantee relief, Phillips gloomily added, citing Environment Canada projections.

"We're showing colder-than-normal conditions for the spring period," he explained, "It doesn't mean every day is going to be like that, but it means the flavour of the personality of the next three months should represent cooler conditions."

"I'm probably not going to put away my snow shovel until the long weekend in May," he said.

Nature does not play by any rule book, Phillips added.

"Just because nature has been unfair to us in the beginning does not mean it is going to ease up on us in the end," he said.

His words came as forecasts for central Ontario once again called for, what else, more snow for the coming weekend.

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