Niagara slammed with snowfall Monday, more expected in coming days

Much of southern Ontario is digging out on Monday from the latest round of intense snow.

That mixed with blowing snow caused white-outs and other dangerous conditions across the region.

“This should have happened at Christmas,” is a common thought in the Niagara region on Monday.

Environment Canada tracked a band of snow Monday that developed off of Lake Erie in a flow from the southwest from about 2 a.m. to noon.

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During this time, visibility on roads in Niagara and even side streets were reduced by the combination of falling and blowing snow.

Throw in some bitter wind chills and Monday became dangerous for parts of the region.

This caused school buses to be cancelled in Niagara Monday.

“That’s when the band really started to take shape and intensify. At that point, in the early morning hours [of Monday] it was impacting both northern parts of the Niagara region as well as southern parts of the Niagara region,” says Environment Canada meteorologist Geoff Coulson.

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“We’ve got whiteout conditions, slick, slippery, snowy and ice-covered roadways. We’ve responded to several collisions from vehicles in the ditch and striking centre medians. We’re asking everyone to please slow down and drive according to the weather conditions,” says Sgt. Ed Sanchuk of the West Region Ontario Provincial Police.

While Hamilton was affected by another system moving through the city, it experienced its own battle on the snow-covered roads.

In fact, Environment Canada is tracking another system set to bring another 5 to 10 centimetres of snow to Niagara, Hamilton and Haldimand county starting Wednesday morning.

“The next system we are looking at is a larger scale system not relying on localized snow squalls, but a larger spread area of snow fall to affect the whole area,” says Coulson.

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Business owners in Niagara Falls say the snow is so deep in parking lots because plows are too busy getting around the city.

“The snow is just fluffy and light so it’s not that heavy like the wet snow we had a few days ago.”

Having a snow blower handy made that fluffy snow fly a little faster too.

Though, some used the time-honoured tradition of the plastic shovel.

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“Had a job interview at about 10 o’clock this morning, had to drive out to Allanburg, Ont. for the interview. Stressful drive but hopefully I got the job.”

“I have family in New Zealand so I sent them all videos of what we’re dealing with while they’re sunbathing.”

There is more sympathy in other parts of the city.

“I feel bad for the teachers but they had the schools open so we got the kids to school. It was a little difficult.”

So it’s good to keep digging to make room for more snow in the next few days.

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