Winter storm pummels Atlantic Canada, with more on the way

Its turning out to be a huge winter wallop for Atlantic Canada this week, as a massive winter storm barrels through the region.

New Brunswick has been hit the hardest so far, with strong winds and at least 30 cm of snow, causing school closures, downing trees, and leaving over 45,000 residents across the province without power, with half of the outages in Fredericton alone.

This is the first old-fashioned Nor’easter of the year for Atlantic Canada that came rumbling up from northeastern United States. Dubbed winter storm ‘Cato’ by American TV meteorologists, the winter blast snarled US Thanksgiving travel across the East Coast for much of Wednesday. And by last night the storm had moved up the coast and slammed into the Maritimes.

But it’s not the only region of the nation affected this week. The western provinces are seeing their share of inclement weather too, with a strong low-pressure storm system bringing heavy rain to Vancouver and snow to the Prairie provinces. Snowfall totals in parts of Alberta will be pushing 40 cm by the time the snow comes to an end.

Certainly all the weather across the country is connected in one way or another, but with the two systems on either coast, it’s a bit more difficult to connect the dots, according to Dayna Vettese, a meteorologist at The Weather Network.

“It’s not unusual to have many areas of the country getting hit with hard weather but they are two rather heavy snowfall events,” Vettese said.

“The bad news for those living in British Columbia and the Prairie provinces is that it’s going to get very cold once the snow ends. By the weekend, daytime highs in parts of the Prairies will be struggling to reach -20 C.”

But for Vettese and her meteorologist colleagues, the current storm patterns are fitting in with their winter weather outlook, which predicts a repeat of last winter’s weather. The Weather Network has been predicting storm tracks will sweep across the Ohio Valley, the northeast U.S. and Atlantic Canada.

“We expect the East Coast storm track to be the more active and dominant storm track and we’re seeing that already with the last few storm systems that have come into Atlantic Canada,” Vettese said.

So while there may be a short break in the intense weather in the next few days, there is more to come for the Martitimes.

Once this storm system moves out, there are a couple more systems moving in from central Canada that will bring more snow and cold. Luckily for weary Maritimers, meteorologists anticipate these systems won’t be packing quite as severe a punch as what has been moving across the region the past day or so.

However, we shouldn’t be surprised by the wild and fierce weather this time of the year, Vettese points out. Fall is a transitional season where summer and winter battle it out for territory, with winter eventually winning in the end.

“These stark temperature contrasts between the cold Arctic and the still relatively warm southern U.S. can create some fairly strong setups in the jet stream,” Vettese explained.

“This then leads to the formation of potent and windy storms in the fall, just like we have been seeing happen.”

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