Halifax could see first ‘significant’ snowfall of the season on Friday (update)

UPDATE: Snowfall warning expanded to Halifax area

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At long last, it seems snow is on the way for Halifax. 

A special weather statement is in effect, and as of Thursday morning, it's calling for between 10 and 15 cm of snow for the Halifax area in what Environment Canada says will likely be the first “significant” snowfall of the winter. 

Snowfall warnings are already in effect along the South Shore and Environment Canada meteorologist Ian Hubbard said that could expand to Halifax later today.

He expects snow to start falling here Friday morning.

“Probably by around daybreak tomorrow we should start to see some snowflakes in the Halifax area,” he told CityNews Halifax. “Certainly by 7 a.m. we'll see some on the ground and it will start to pick up from there.”

“That's going to continue right through the day.”

Hubbard said there could be an accumulation of 10 cm by the evening drive home, with snow starting to taper off Friday night before ending overnight into Saturday.

Wind isn't expected to be a huge factor, but with gusts to 50 km/h, blowing snow could be an issue in some exposed areas.

Halifax has been experiencing a noticeable lack of snow so far this winter. The weather station at the airport has only registered just over 5 cm in total for all of January.

“The storm tracks we've seen for this part of the province, we've seen a lot of mild temperatures and rain,” Hubbard explained. “So we've had some significant systems move through, but they haven't had that cold air to allow the precipitation to fall as snow.”

“Now other areas of the province have had more snow than the Halifax area.”

Once Friday's system moves off, the rest of the weekend looks okay.

“It looks fairly decent,” Hubbard said. “Some sunny skies behind this and some cooler air coming in.”

The next system should arrive here Monday, but we likely won't have to shovel that one.

“Right now it looks like another one of these warmer ones,” Hubbard explained. “We might see a few flakes at the beginning of it, but overall it will push in warm air and the precipitation that comes from it looks like rain with some windy conditions for later in the day Monday.”

“We'll be keeping an eye on that tomorrow and into the weekend.”