Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are now dealing with a winter storm that previously brought bitter cold and heavy snow to parts of Ontario and Quebec.

If the weather system has the same level of impact on the East Coast as it did in Ontario and Quebec, it will be the third major snow storm to hit the Maritimes in less than a week.

New Brunswick’s Public Safety office warned residents to stock up on food, if they hadn’t already done so.

“When you have these types of elements, you could run into power outages,” said spokesperson Paul Bradley. “Anything could happen where you would need to sustain yourself, so hopefully people got out to get their supplies.”

Earlier Monday, the weather system froze parts of Northern Ontario, with temperatures approaching - 50 degrees Celsius.

“I wanted to cry,” a woman in Timmins told CTV News. “I didn’t even want to get out of bed, to be honest.”

In Southern Ontario, the storm clogged public transit and traffic.

Windsor got buried in 37 centimetres of snow over two days, and put out an urgent call to keep private vehicles off the roads.

“The amount (of snow) is one thing, but the drifting takes it to a whole other level,” said Mark Winterton, Windsor’s executive director of operations.

The storm dumped more than 20 centimetres of snow on the Greater Toronto Area, and city crews spent much of Monday clearing the roads. They were expected to finish Tuesday morning, when Environment Canada's forecast called for another two centimetres.

The city estimates that the cost of this latest snowstorm is between $3 million and $5 million.

Highway 401 closure

A section of Highway 401 had to be closed in Whitby, Ont., due to a weather-related crash involving eight vehicles.

The stretch of road was described as a "sheet of ice" by an Ontario Provincial Police officer at the scene.

The Ontario Provincial Police also reported hundreds of collisions.

“(Drivers) are taking the exit ramps too fast. They are maybe changing lanes too aggressively and losing control,” Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said.

According to the CAA South Central Ontario, they received more than 2,800 calls for service by noon.

Meanwhile, dozens of flights were cancelled on Monday morning as a result of the weather. At Toronto Pearson International Airport, 90 departures (12 per cent) and 93 arrivals (12 per cent) had been cancelled by 9 a.m.

Downtown, 19 arrivals and 15 departures had been cancelled at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.

With reports from CTV’s Atlantic Bureau Chief Todd Battis and CTV Toronto's Collin D'Mello