A messy mix
Snow, ice pellets, rain and wind in forecast for P.E.I. on Wednesday
A messy mix of winter is heading for P.E.I. on Wednesday. SaltWire meteorologist Cindy Day said motorists can expect a rather tricky drive to work on Wednesday morning.
A low pressure system approaching from the west will move into the region. It will then slowly track northeastward to lie north of the province by Thursday evening.
“This system is wobbling a little bit in some of the computer models that are tracking it, so it does look like precipitation will start before sunrise on Wednesday, sometime between midnight and sunrise Wednesday morning, and it’s going to start definitely as snow.’’
Considering the heaviest snowfall rates are expected during the morning hours, these anticipated heavier snowfall rats combined with southeasterly winds with gusts of 70 km/h could generate poor driving conditions during the morning commuting hours.
“How long it stays that way will tell you how much snow you’ll get, but I think it will be 10 to 12 centimetres in there before it changes to a little bit of mixing of ice pellets around noon and then straight rain shortly after that.’’ It adds up to the kind of weather that wreaks havoc on people’s snowblowers — wet, heavy snow.
“It’s such a heavy, almost impossible to move cement kind of snow,’’ Day said. She said the drive home will be much different as temperatures climb to 2 C, and the snow turns to rain. Day said she also has her eyes on another system for Sunday night.
“This next one looks like it’s going to track off Cape Breton Island and curl up towards Newfoundland, but it wouldn’t take much of a western turn to bring that snow into the eastern half of (P.E.I.),’’ Day said.
“That would be Sunday night into Monday and that looks like it’s going to just miss. But we’re seven days out so anything can change.’’