Snow? Say it isn’t so!

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/10/2010 (5610 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We all knew it was coming sometime, Westman. We just simply hoped it wouldn’t.

The first winter storm of the season, which was on track to hit western Manitoba late Tuesday night with wet, sloppy precipitation, is expected to hit much of the region with steady snow and wind gusts of up to 80 kilometres per hour today.

"It’s going to be a big, big storm," Environment Canada meteorologist Albert Skiba predicted yesterday afternoon.

Contributing to the potentially hazardous winter weather is the fact that as the storm moved into southern Manitoba Tuesday afternoon, it had already dumped between 20 to 40 millimeters of rain onto the area. That, combined with a temperature expected to hover around 0 C today, means "that it will definitely be slippery," Skiba said.

"This is basically the first taste of winter, so people generally aren’t used to driving in winter conditions and this is an abrupt reminder of what’s coming," Skiba said. "Wednesday, travel may be pretty treacherous."

Brandon is likely to see anywhere between 10 to 15 centimetres of snow before the storm dissipates on Wednesday night, while some of higher elevations in southwestern Manitoba such as the Riding Mountain, Duck and Turtle Mountain areas, could be hit by as much as 25 centimetres.

Brandon’s street clearing crews are on standby with plow trucks, graders and sand trucks to deal with snow if it sticks around too long or becomes problematic.

"There’s some priorities," says Brandon’s director of public works, Ian Broome.

"We will have to salt, probably, depending on the temperature. We would do certain areas, like the Eighth Street bridge. That gets salted and sanded even if it gets below freezing right now.

"If we get the 15 centimetres and it’s going to hit zero for the next couple of days, we’re probably just going to do our arterial and collector (routes)," he said.

The city has approximately $100,000 left in its 2010 snow clearing budget, a level Broome said is more than adequate, provided there are not a series of storms that continue to slam the city from now until the end of December.

The accumulations should, by and large, disappear by the weekend, with temperatures expected to rise to 9 C by Sunday.

But you’d be tempting fate if you think we’re out of the woods this winter, so it’s likely best if you get vehicle ready for winter driving, pronto.

"We are quite booked up today. Procrastination seems to be alive and well," Don Flawinski, an employee with the city’s Canadian Tire service centre, said yesterday.

"If you were looking to get a set of winter tires, you’ll be looking into waiting until Thursday or Friday."

Traditionally, snow falls in the Brandon area and sticks around for the winter by about the second half of November, Skiba noted.