Overnight snow storm buries Winnipeg, plows are on streets

Winnipeg woke up to an anticipated blanket of snow Monday morning, forcing school closures across the province.

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Strong wind gusts near 50 km/h created snow drifts throughout the city, according to Shannon Moodie of Environment Canada.

On Sunday, Environment Canada predicted 10-15 cm of snowfall in Winnipeg due to a Colorado Low.

The snow is expected to taper off late Monday morning, and stop around noon, Moodie said.

But according to Moodie, Winnipeggers aren’t in the clear yet. “The cold is going to come back. It’s either cold or snow, and I don’t know which one is worse,” Moodie said.

Moodie says another system will roll into Winnipeg on Tuesday, bringing a few centimeters of snow, followed by more frigid temperatures on Wednesday.

“We’ll get more extreme cold mid-week from an arctic air system and that could stick around for a while,” Moodie said.

Winds are expected to die down on Monday night, while temperatures could reach -30 C.

Plows are out

The City’s street maintenance guru, Michael Cantor, told 680 CJOB Monday morning that plows have been out since 11 p.m. Sunday and are concentrating on major routes.

“We have more than 200 pieces of equipment and truck plows and loaders out there clearing snow.”

The goal for the day was to improve conditions for the rush hours, said Cantor, noting due to the blowing snow, “this is an ongoing event.

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“You have to re-plow some spots and deal with some trouble spots as well.”

Once the wind dies down, a “bigger plow operation will be initiated.”

At about 11 a.m. the City of Winnipeg declared a snow route parking ban.

The declared ban pushes the normal parking ban up by two hours, meaning crews will begin clearing snow routes at 12 a.m. instead of 2 a.m. The ban will end at 7 a.m. daily until snow is cleared.

Manitoba RCMP are asking people to stay off the highways unless they absolutely must travel.

CAA Manitoba said while the calls for service are nothing like last week’s record breaking numbers, there is still a wait for service and people who are stranded are the priority.

LISTEN: Michael Cantor talks street maintenance during Monday’s snowstorm