Calgarians are set to flip the calendar to a new month tomorrow, and despite it nearly being May, the city woke up to wet and heavy snow Tuesday.
A special weather statement from Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) remains in effect for Calgary and parts of southern Alberta, calling for significant snowfall this week.
“Areas southwest of Calgary are definitely getting the most snowfall this morning and then they’re actually expected to get the most snow again coming up,” explained Heather Rombough with ECCC. “So, a long duration snowfall, like I said, it could last until Thursday evening before it tapers off to flurries.”
ECCC says the snow is expected to taper off later Tuesday morning, but will return heavily in the evening along the foothills and then spread to the east and continue through Wednesday.
Ten to 25 centimetres of snow are possible by Thursday morning, with the highest amounts falling west of Highway 2.
“West of the City of Calgary could see considerable snowfall amounts, even approaching 50 centimetres in some areas over the two-and-a-half days,” Rombough said.
The snow will be heavy and wet, and will be mixed with rain in some areas, so the total amount of snow across the province will vary widely.
RELATED: Calgary could see up to 20 cm of snow this week
The wet and heavy precipitation is causing some treacherous road conditions in and outside the city.
It’s bad enough that some schools outside of Calgary are closing Tuesday; in a statement, Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School, just outside of Okotoks, says it is closed.
The Foothills School Division has also closed Red Deer Lake School, Millarville School, and Longview School, as well as Oilfields High School, C. Ian McLaren School and Turner Valley School, in Diamond Valley.
Alberta 511 shows poor conditions in Bragg Creek, Millarville, and headed west toward K-Country, as well as south of the city in Okotoks and High River.
Several Calgary communities are without power Tuesday morning, according to Enmax.
There’s an unexpected power outage in multiple communities. We are investigating the cause and the power will be restored as quickly as possible. For the latest updates, go to https://t.co/WOjWO0IMDX. (Ref. 0123) #yyc pic.twitter.com/jmwM72tTFe
— ENMAX Power (@ENMAXpower) April 30, 2024
Outages began as early as 2 a.m. for some, while others popped up closer to 5 a.m.
Communities affected include Belmont, Legacy, Abbeydale, Applewood Park, Belvedere, Huxley, Red Carpet, Twinhills, East Shepard Industrial, Great Plains East, Rocky View County, Starfield East, Hawkwood, Bayview, Chinook Park, Eagle Ridge, Glenmore Park, Haysboro, Kelvin Grove, Pump Hill, and Tsuut’ina Nation.
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