A powerful nor’easter is blowing through Nova Scotia, cancelling schools, causing travel disruptions and leaving power outages in its wake.
Between 30-50 cm are in the forecast for the southeast region of Nova Scotia by dawn on Tuesday.
Nova Scotia Power activated its Emergency Operations Centre at 8 a.m. Monday, saying crews were positioned across the province to respond to outages. The wind and snow can weigh down trees and pull branches onto power lines, the utility said.
Environment Canada has issued winter weather warnings for both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, which carry on into Tuesday morning.
“The higher accumulations and the higher snowfall rates are going to be in the afternoon and evening hours,” said Bob Robichaud, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
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Wind gusts could reach up to 80 km/h, reducing visibility in blowing snow.
All arrivals and departures from Halifax Stanfield International Airport are cancelled for the remainder of Monday.
Many schools in the province were either closed Monday or had early dismissals.
Although the region is getting hit with more snow than last winter — already 50 cm more in Halifax compared to this time last year — meteorologists say it’s par for the course.
“It is a worse winter than we’ve seen recently but actually pretty close to average compared to snow totals and there’s still quite a bit of winter to go,” said Anthony Farnell, Global News’ chief meteorologist.
The system is hitting the rest of winter-weary Atlantic Canada with snow and strong winds.
Most of the Maritimes are under winter storm and snowfall warnings, with Environment Canada calling for totals of between 15-25 cm across much of P.E.I., Nova Scotia and southern and eastern New Brunswick.
— with a file from The Canadian Press
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