EDMONTON – Say it ain’t SNOW. Environment Canada issued snowfall warnings for areas near Hinton, Nordegg and Grande Cache – and Mother Nature delivered. The first notable snowfall of the year hit that area Thursday night and during the early morning hours of Friday.
While it’s not unusual to see an early September snowfall warning in that region, the timing is not great.
Stage 3 of the Tour of Alberta was scheduled to run from Grande Cache to Jasper Friday morning, exactly where the snowfall warnings were.
Some people posted photos Friday morning showing the cold, wet and snowy conditions.
Gonna be a cold day. Highway 40. #TourOfAlberta #TOA15 pic.twitter.com/pgI5ZEEL1G — EatingIsTheHardPart (@shorelinegold) September 4, 2015
Road to the finish today in @TourOfAlberta t shirt weather pic.twitter.com/B4M0Ep80tY
Its gonna be a cold day in Tour of Alberta I guess! #drapac #TOA15 #snow #cycling pic.twitter.com/CICCf21IHz — Wouter Wippert (@wouterwippert) September 4, 2015
READ MORE: ITU World Triathlon, Tour of Alberta cause traffic closures in Edmonton this weekend
Many northwestern communities were already seeing heavy rain Thursday afternoon, including Grande Prairie where Stage 2 of the race had a soggy finish.
Global Edmonton’s chief meteorologist Jesse Beyer noted that the white stuff “has already started falling in the Nordegg area in the afternoon, so it’s not looking good for higher elevations of the Rockies.”
“If travelling in the area, slushy and slippery roads will be a concern for commuters,” Beyer warns.
“Snowfall amounts will vary,” Beyer said. “In the upper elevations five centimetres is a good estimate, but localized areas in the warned zone may see higher accumulations.”
Tour of Alberta CEO, Duane Vienneau, said his team was watching the weather closely for Stage 3 of the event that travels from Grande Cache to the Miette Hot Springs in Jasper National Park.
“Right now we are moving forward as planned unless we deem it unsafe for the cyclists,” Vienneau told Global News.
Should the snow pose a safety risk to the racers and production crews, he said his team would go to a Plan B scenario, which could include a number of different options. He added that a variety of conditions could exist along the 187-kilometer mountain stretch.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that we would stop the race; it means that we would modify the race slightly based on whatever situation arises.”
With files from Karen Bartko, Global News
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