Winter storm causes school closures, travel delays across Nova Scotia

An overnight blast of winter has caused widespread school closures and travel delays across Nova Scotia. Thousands are without power thanks to several outages across the province, according to Nova Scotia Power.

School closures:

• Halifax Regional School Board – Closed for the day. School board offices opening at 11 a.m.
• Chignecto Central Regional School Board – Closed for the day. Work sites have three-hour delayed opening.
• Annapolis Valley Regional School Board – Closed for the day, including offices and work sites.
• South Shore Regional School Board – Closed for the day, including regional office.
• Strait Regional School Board – Closed for the day. Support staff to report to work at 11 a.m.
• Cape Breton-Victoria Regional School Board  – Closed for the day.
• Tri-County Regional School Board  – Closed for the day.
• CSAP – all schools closed for the day – Southwest office to open at 10 a.m.

University closures:

• Dalhousie University Halifax, Truro, University of King’s College – Delayed opening until 10:30 a.m.
• NSCC – Metro Halifax campuses opening at 10:30 a.m. (reassessing at 9 a.m.), many other campuses closed for the day
• Mount Saint Vincent University  – Delaying opening until noon.
• Saint Mary’s University – Delaying opening until noon.
• NSCAD  – Delayed opening until noon.

Travel delays:

Roads across the province are snow covered and blowing snow is reducing visibility.

• Halifax Transit – All buses travelling on regular routes, some experiencing delays.
• Halifax Stanfield International Airport – Several flights delayed, check with your airline.
• Halifax harbour bridges  – Both bridges open to all vehicles.
• 100-series Highways – Many highways around Halifax experiencing whiteouts and low visibility.
• Canso Causeway – Closed to high-sided vehicles.
• Marine Atlantic  – Crossings between North Sydney and Port aux Basques are cancelled for the day.

Halifax municipal offices:

• Garbage/recycling/green cart collection  – Cancelled, rescheduled for Saturday, Feb. 11.
• Municipal offices, customer service centres  – Delayed opening until 10 a.m.
• Halifax Recreational Facilities – Delayed opening until 10 a.m.
• Street and sidewalk clearing  – City officials say main roads and transit routes are cleared, continued street cleaning and sidewalk clearing underway. Status updates here.

Upwards of 30 centimetres of snow fell across the province overnight Thursday and into Friday morning, with about 20 falling in Metro Halifax. That mixing with blowing snow has made for messy conditions as residents begin their Friday mornings.

Blowing snow and wind are expected to continue throughout the day.

WATCH: Global’s Jennifer Grudic gives an update from downtown Halifax on the overnight Nor’Easter that brought more than 20 centimetres of snow to much of Nova Scotia.

2:21 Nor’Easter Effects

The winter storm warning has now been lifted, according to Environment Canada. Winter Storm and wind warnings, as well as storm surge warnings, are still in effect in certain parts of the province.