Messy storm affecting millions of Canadians with freezing rain, snow and strong winds

A 3,000-kilometre storm system stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Prairies is creating dangerous driving conditions across most of Canada today.

The storm front, which passed through the southern regions of Saskatchewan and Manitoba Wednesday, brought snow and is wreaking havoc in Ontario Thursday. Cities south of Lake Huron had freezing rain, which as the system travelled east and warm air mixed with arctic wind, turned into snow.

"This is Ontario's story today, Ottawa you get the storm tonight," Kelsey McEwen, CTV Your Morning’s chief meteorologist, said on Thursday. "Southern Quebec, it will move in through Friday and then by the time we hit the weekend, it's pushing its way right into Atlantic Canada."

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This low-pressure system from the United States created blizzards across the Great Plains and tornadoes in the south earlier this week.

"We have to keep our perspective that it is a pretty significant storm, but it won't be as bad as we've seen in the past in some cases," Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist at Environment Canada, told CTV News Channel on Thursday.

 

Map source: Government of Canada

 

The four provinces affected by the storm system are all under special weather statements from Environment Canada, warning of poor visibility or freezing rain.

A number of highways were closed in Manitoba and many buses were cancelled due to the blowing snow.

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) responded to a 17-vehicle pile-up that closed the Garden City Skyway in St. Catherines, Ont.

"It was an absolute mess," Kerry Schmidt, media relations officer with OPP told CTV News Channel on Thursday. "It is so deceiving, you don't realize what the conditions are like."

Schmidt says a mixture of freezing rain and wind gusts have made travel conditions in parts of Ontario difficult.

"The problem is because there was so much traffic out this morning, the salters got stuck in the mess with all the volume of traffic and they were not able to get that salting job completed, and that's when it started freezing over," he said.

The rest of the country from B.C. to Newfoundland is being impacted by other smaller storm systems bringing snow, cold, rain, freezing rain and wind.

Environment Canada has issued special weather statements for parts of all provinces and territories due to the wintry conditions.

Atlantic Canada was buried earlier this week with a separate snowstorm and is preparing for the latest system expected to hit Saturday.