As Eastern Canada shovels out, another wintery mess is on the way this weekend

Eastern and Atlantic Canada, get ready for round two with Old Man Winter. While not as strong as the blizzard that hit at the start of the week, a second winter storm promises to bring windy and slippery conditions across much of the Maritimes to end the week.

Special weather statements have been issued across Atlantic Canada in advance of two systems approaching the region. Ontario and Quebec are already seeing one system moving in from the west, bringing with it 5 to 15 cm of blowing snow and even mixing with ice along the Lake Erie shoreline. However, northeastern Ontario and north of the St. Lawrence could see closer to 15 cm or more of the white stuff. This system will eventually track into the Maritimes on Friday.

“The Alberta Clipper bringing snow to Ontario and Quebec today [Thursday] will continue east to impact Atlantic Canada Friday into Saturday,” said Dayna Vettese, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

“This storm system will not be as powerful as the so called ‘blizzard of 2015’ we had earlier this week, but it will still bring snow and wind to the provinces.”

According to the forecast, New Brunswick will be one of the provinces hardest hit.

“They are looking at an all-snow event with snow moving in Friday and continuing through Saturday night,” Vettese said. “And while amounts are certainly less than the last storm, we could still see totals 10 to 20 cm across the province.”

Meanwhile, it looks like Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia will be getting more of a mixed bag in terms of precipitation, surely making for slippery and dangerous travel.

“Both areas will start as snow, transition to freezing rain and/or ice pellets, then over to rain for Saturday morning. The precipitation will change back over to snow Saturday afternoon and evening before coming to an end.”

Total snow amounts should be 10-15 cm across PEI and 5-10 cm across the majority of Nova Scotia, with some localized spots of 10-15 cm possible on mainland Nova Scotia.

Winds will still be gusty with this system but, as mentioned before, not as strong as we saw earlier this week. Gusts of 40-60 km/h are expected across the Maritimes with 60-70 km/h gusts across PEI and Cape Breton.

Meanwhile, another weather system is making its way up from the Atlantic coastline that will be affecting much of Newfoundland on the weekend.

“This system will be a bit of a mess of every precipitation for Newfoundland moving in Saturday,” Vettese explained.

“We’ll start as snow, change to a period of freezing rain, then over to light showers then back over to snow.”