YEAR BEGINS WITH A BANG IN MUCH OF B.C.
It was supposed to be the first day back in school for many students after the Christmas break, but schools, along with highways, were closed in many parts of the province and thousands of residents lost power as parts of B.C. experienced winter’s first wallop of 2015. Environment Canada maintained nearly three dozen warnings Monday afternoon about winter storms, rainfall, snowfall and extreme cold across the province and avalanche experts issued backcountry warnings. The heavy snowfall closed schools in the central Okanagan, North Okanagan-Shuswap, Fraser-Cascade and Kamloops districts, as well as private schools and Thompson Rivers University.