Freezing rain arrives in Halifax (update)

UPDATE: The freezing rain and rainfall warnings put into place by Environment Canada ended just before 10 a.m. on Saturday.

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The freezing rain has arrived in the Halifax Regional Municipality.

As of Friday morning, both a freezing rain warning and a rainfall warning are in effect.

“Areas to the north already have a pretty noticeable coating of ice, and that's just going to propagate southward as the morning goes on, continue into the afternoon and into the evening hours as well,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Robichaud in a 9 a.m. interview.

He said we could see some ice pellets in the mix at times.

“It's going to be an icy day no matter how you slice it,” he told CityNews Halifax.

That means slippery roads and sidewalks, and the potential for power outages.

There have already been a few this morning in the HRM and Nova Scotia Power has activated its Emergency Operations Centre to respond.

“With the amounts of freezing rain that the models are predicting, it's consistent with other events where we had significant, widespread and potentially even prolonged outages,” Robichaud explained.

“It remains to be seen if that's going to be the case here in the Halifax area, but other parts of the province could definitely see that occurring.”

The icy conditions have already had an impact on our area, with schools and malls closed, garbage collection cancelled and Halifax Transit planning to shut down service at 11 a.m.

With files from Chris Stoodley