THUNDER BAY — While the transition from fall to winter seemed pretty rapid for Thunder Bay this year, Environment Canada says the city is actually behind on the amount of snow usually receives.
Within the past week, the city has gotten its first blast of snowy weather. Thunder Bay school buses were cancelled along with a number of rural schools closed on Tuesday, as parts of the city dug out their shovels and snowblowers, while areas on the north side only had a mild dusting.
Peter Kimbell, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, said it’s been mild for quite a long period of time in October and November, which has resulted in just 11 centimetres of snow being recorded on the ground.
“That just dropped yesterday, probably from compaction, it's not really much warmer, but [from] a bit of compaction, it dropped about 3 centimetres or so,” he said on Thursday.
“But we still had some incidents of snow on the 15th, which would be on Tuesday, but normally speaking, the average snowfall in Thunder Bay in the month of November is about 28 centimetres of snow, so it's basically overdue.”
A winter weather travel advisory was announced by Environment Canada late Thursday morning, but quickly ended due to winds shifting to the north. Periods of light snow through the day and into Thursday evening are forecasted.
Parts of the region can expect some flurries off of Lake Nipigon, Kimbell said Thunder Bay will be more affected by temperature.
“There will be some cold weather — looking for wind chill of -19 [Friday] morning, he said.
“So, winter is definitely here, it went from fall to winter pretty rapidly.”
