Rainfall warning and freezing rain warning issued for Halifax (update)
Posted Feb 3, 2022 02:15:00 PM.
Halifax could be in for a blast of ice tomorrow.
A freezing rain warning has been issued for much of the province, including the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Robichaud said this system has the potential of being a significant weather event.
“We're looking at a solid 20 hours of freezing rain in the Halifax area,” he said in an interview at around 9 a.m. Thursday morning.
“There's certainly going to be a significant amount of ice build up,” he added. “The question remains, is it going to be one of these extreme events, which is certainly on the table at this point.”
The warning says to expect highways, roads, walkways and parking lots to all be icy and possibly hazardous. It also cautions about the potential for extended power outages.
At around 11 a.m. Environment Canada added a freezing rain warning for HRM, calling for 30 to 60 mm by Saturday.
Robichaud expects the rain to transition to freezing rain early Friday morning.
“We're looking at about maybe sometime between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. in northern parts of HRM, like around the airport,” he stated. “Towards the city, it's probably going to be 2 or 3 hours later because the changeover is going to be so slow.”
“Then we're looking at periods of freezing rain throughout most of the day on Friday, with probably the heaviest portion of freezing rain coming in the early evening hours on Friday.”
Robichaud said the temperature will be key in determining how bad conditions get.
“Tenths of degrees is going to make a huge difference,” he explained. “Around 5 to 7 o'clock tomorrow night, we're looking at temperatures ranging from 0.0 to -0.3. That's going to be the critical thing.”
And with temperatures expected to stay below 0 degrees over the weekend, we won't be getting a quick melt, and snow is now in Saturday forecast.
