Second winter storm in a week blankets Atlantic Canada, turning Easter into another snow day

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Snowplows and salt trucks rolled along nearly empty highways across Atlantic Canada on Sunday as a second winter storm in a week turned Easter into another snow day for millions of residents.

From northern New Brunswick to Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula, a sprawling Colorado low pushed in heavy, wet snow, pockets of freezing rain and bands of cold, driving rain. Meteorologists warned the messy mix would make travel hazardous, raise the risk of power outages and force families to cancel holiday plans already bruised by a long, stormy winter.

Forecasters said the system was following closely on the heels of a storm that swept through the region Friday and Saturday, closing schools, coating roads in ice and prompting “do not travel” advisories on parts of the Trans-Canada Highway in eastern Newfoundland.

On Sunday, the same communities were bracing for another hit.

“A second winter storm is hitting Atlantic Canada on Easter Sunday, bringing snow, ice, and rain,” a brief from Yahoo Canada said early Sunday, adding that travel disruptions and power outages were expected.

Back-to-back blows

The Weather Network had warned well ahead of the long weekend that two separate storm systems would converge on Atlantic Canada, describing them as back-to-back “big blasts” for the East Coast.

The first storm, moving in late Thursday and peaking Friday into Saturday, brought a widespread swath of snow and freezing rain across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Environment and Climate Change Canada issued yellow-level freezing rain and snowfall alerts under its new color-coded system, which rolled out nationally late last year.

In New Brunswick, snowfall warnings and freezing rain advisories covered much of the province. Southern and central regions, including Fredericton and Moncton, saw several millimeters of ice accretion, making highways slick and prompting police to caution against nonessential travel. In Nova Scotia, freezing rain fell across the Halifax area Friday under an Environment Canada warning, glazing sidewalks and overpasses.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the first system intensified on Saturday. The provincial Department of Transportation and Infrastructure reported “treacherous road conditions” on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Clarenville. Highways officials recommended motorists not travel on major stretches linking Clarenville, Terra Nova National Park and Harbour Grace as snow and blowing snow reduced visibility.

Snowfall totals from the first storm ranged from 10 to 15 centimeters in parts of Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula and along the south coast, with lesser amounts through central regions. Road crews were still clearing drifts Saturday evening when the next system began to organize to the south.

The Weather Network said the second low would “follow a similar track on Sunday,” bringing another round of heavy snow to northern areas and extended periods of freezing rain where temperatures hovered near the freezing mark.

By Sunday morning, snow was spreading into New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, with forecasters calling for an additional 10 to 20 centimeters in northern New Brunswick and parts of central and western Newfoundland. Farther south, forecasters expected 10 to 30 millimeters of rain across sections of southwestern Nova Scotia and southeastern New Brunswick as the system drew milder air over the Atlantic.

In Newfoundland, NTV’s Sunday forecast called for increasing cloud with snow spreading across the island and changing to ice pellets and freezing rain at night — a classic snow-to-ice transition that can quickly coat roads, power lines and trees.

Environment Canada reminded residents that freezing rain warnings are issued when rain falls in sub-zero air, creating ice buildup and “icy surfaces” that can make even short trips dangerous.

Holiday plans on hold

The Easter timing magnified the disruption. Churches and community groups in several provinces announced they were moving services online or canceling sunrise gatherings as road conditions deteriorated.

In Halifax, some congregations told parishioners to stay home and watch livestreams rather than attempt to navigate iced-over side streets. In rural New Brunswick and on P.E.I., families scrapped plans to travel to relatives’ homes, worried that conditions would worsen as the day went on and temperatures dipped.

The weekend storms followed what many residents described as an unusually disruptive winter.

A Canadian Press feature last week noted that “stormy weather closed schools in parts of New Brunswick and Newfoundland” as Environment Canada warned of freezing rain and snow across much of the region. Teachers and parents expressed concern about another year of lost instructional days layered on top of pandemic-era learning gaps.

Seniors and low-income residents have also been hit hard. In Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, the executive director of the Dartmouth Seniors Service Centre said she had already canceled more meal delivery days this winter than usual because of unsafe roads, cutting isolated seniors off from both food and companionship.

With Easter storming in, she and other service providers were again monitoring conditions to decide whether volunteers could safely reach clients.

Power grid on edge

The double storm comes amid renewed scrutiny of the region’s power grid, which is operated by a mix of private and public utilities.

Nova Scotia Power, a privately owned monopoly controlled by Emera Inc., supplies nearly all electricity in that province and has faced criticism over frequent storm-related outages and proposed rate increases. In New Brunswick, the Crown-owned NB Power serves most customers. Prince Edward Island’s Maritime Electric and Newfoundland Power, which serves much of Newfoundland, are both owned by Fortis Inc., a St. John’s-based holding company with utility operations across North America and the Caribbean.

Forecasters at The Weather Network warned that both Easter weekend storms could produce isolated power outages, especially where heavy, wet snow and ice accumulations stressed tree limbs and overhead lines. The Yahoo Canada brief went further, saying power outages were “anticipated” as the second storm moved in.

In mid-March, a separate wind and rain event left about 17,000 Nova Scotia Power customers without electricity, with outages scattered across the province. That storm, though less dramatic than a blizzard, underscored how even moderate systems can knock out service in a region where many lines remain above ground and exposed to falling trees.

A recent winter reliability assessment from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation flagged the Maritimes as an area that could face some risk of unserved energy during peak winter conditions if supply problems coincided with extreme weather.

Utilities say they are investing in grid hardening and vegetation management, but consumer advocates and some municipal leaders have called for more aggressive measures, including burying lines in urban cores and tightening regulatory oversight.

A long, messy season

Atlantic Canadians are no strangers to late-winter storms. Historic systems such as the 2004 “White Juan” blizzard, which dumped up to a meter of snow in parts of Nova Scotia and P.E.I., and post-tropical storms Dorian in 2019 and Fiona in 2022, which left hundreds of thousands in the dark, have etched themselves into regional memory.

What is wearing on many this year is the relentlessness. The 2025–26 season has already featured a major February blizzard, multiple March storms and now a pair of systems bookending Easter weekend, with much of the precipitation falling as heavy, wet snow or freezing rain instead of the drier powder more typical of deep winter cold.

Climate scientists caution that no single storm can be directly attributed to climate change without detailed analysis. But they say the pattern of warmer winters, with more precipitation falling near the freezing point, is consistent with expectations in a warming world. That can mean more mixed-precipitation events, including freezing rain, and more frequent shoulder-season storms in March and April.

Federal and provincial adaptation reports have urged utilities and regulators to account for rising storm-related costs in their planning, warning that repair bills and outage impacts are likely to grow without significant investment in resilience.

As Easter Sunday’s storm continued to work its way north and east, forecasters said conditions would gradually improve in the Maritimes by late Sunday night, with the worst of the snow and ice shifting toward Newfoundland and Labrador into Monday.

For residents from Moncton to St. John’s, that meant at least one more day of watching the weather, refreshing outage maps and hoping that by the time the last snowbank melts, this winter’s long run of storms will finally be over.