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Many schools and universities are closed and dozens of flights in and out of Halifax’s airport are cancelled as a large winter storm begins to sweep across Nova Scotia.
The snowfall is expected to last into Tuesday, and could bring 40 centimetres or more to some parts of the province.
Public schools across mainland Nova Scotia are closed. Several post-secondary campuses, including at Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Community College (except Sydney, which remains open), are closed for the day.
Provincial government offices are also closed.
Public Works Minister Fred Tilley said in an interview Monday morning with the CBC’s Information Morning that the province has about 400 pieces of snow-clearing equipment mobilized. He said crews in the western parts of the province were reporting blowing snow and poor visibility.
All of Nova Scotia is under either an Environment Canada snowfall or winter storm warning. Parts of New Brunswick and P.E.I. are also under snowfall warnings.
Parts of the United States and Eastern Canada have been battered by winter storms. In Toronto, as much as 60 centimetres of snow has fallen.
Jessica Kinney, a spokesperson for the Halifax International Airport Authority, noted the airport is part of a larger network, which means cancellations and delays in Halifax could also be caused by weather conditions in other cities.
The Halifax Regional Municipality said its offices are closed and that a parking ban would be in place overnight as road clearing continues.
Nova Scotia Power has lifted the warning it issued this weekend when it said there was “significant pressure” on the power system as temperatures plummeted and customers needed more energy for heating.
The utility had asked customers to conserve energy during peak times by turning off high-consumption appliances and turning down the thermostat. The company said Monday the measures were no longer needed. Only a handful of customers were without electricity mid-morning.
“While there were some localized issues and outages related to the cold on Sunday, our teams were able to avoid system wide issues that could have required load shedding — or proactive, short rotating outages across the province,” the company said in a news release.
‘Not overly pleased’
Tilley, who is the MLA for Northside-Westmount in Cape Breton, said people in his area were “not overly pleased” with Nova Scotia Power’s request to cut electricity consumption, given many have converted to heat pumps to heat their homes.
He noted it comes on the heels of a winter storm last week that knocked out power to tens of thousands of Nova Scotia homes and businesses.
“Power reliability is one of the most important things for my constituents,” he said. “I hear a lot about rising rates, yet power is not as good as it used to be and they lose it frequently and it takes longer to restore.”
Nova Scotia Power has said it is spending $1.3 billion over five years to improve reliability by strengthening the grid. It’s also stepped up its tree-trimming efforts.
The utility said last week’s outage was caused by heavy, wet snow that built up on equipment and brought branches and trees down on power lines.
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