Winter storm dumps 15 cm of snow on Waterloo Region
Despite conditions police report only a handful of collisions
WATERLOO REGION — Waterloo Region got a full taste of winter on Saturday with a snowfall of at least 15 centimetres.
The snow began falling at about 6 a.m. Saturday, fell steadily throughout the day and was expected to continue into Sunday, said Monica Vaswani, a severe weather meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“Earlier in the afternoon we had gusts as high as 35 or 40 km/h,” she added. “That’s not too significant, but with the falling snow it made visibility hazardous on roads.”
Ontario Provincial Police were kept busy investigating more than 250 calls on major highways in the greater Toronto area, said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt in a Twitter post. Although plows were out working to keep roads clear, road markings weren’t always visible.
“It’s a mess,” he said.
“And as quickly as we can clear them, new crashes are happening. Cars are spinning out of control, going sideways, getting stuck. I saw some vehicles having struggles even merging onto the highway because there’s some windrows from snow that makes it difficult to traverse.”
Most of the crashes were relatively minor, he said.
Despite the poor driving conditions, Waterloo Regional Police said they were dealing with just a handful of collisions on the snowy Saturday. “The traffic is super slow,” noted Sgt. Mike McKay in Waterloo.
“I think a lot of people heard this was coming and decided to stay home if they could,” said Staff Sgt.
Durval Goncalves in Kitchener.
Police were urging people not to go out unless necessary, and reminding drivers to give other vehicles lots of space and to ensure headlights were on to be as visible as possible.
“The plows are out there, let them do their job. Give them lots of space,” Schmidt said.
Wilfrid Laurier University closed its Waterloo and Brantford campuses at noon on Saturday “due to severe winter weather.” Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge all declared snow emergencies, banning all vehicles from parking on the streets to allow room for plows to clear the roadway. Vehicles left on the road can be ticketed or towed. City plows worked through the night Saturday and operations staff hoped to have all roads in Kitchener cleared by Sunday afternoon, said spokesperson Shawn Falcao.
The storm was due to a lowpressure system tracking from the Midwestern United States, Vaswani said. Another two to four centimetres of snow were expected to fall Saturday night, with a similar amount falling on Sunday.