Storm in weekend forecast

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2015 is barely two days old, but the first major snowstorm of the new year is forecast for this weekend. At Hamilton’s public works yard, crews are on standby in preparation for a weekend of messy weather.

It’s not snow that drivers will have to worry about, but rather the possibility of freezing rain. Still work crews say they are prepared if Southern Ontario gets a blast from old man winter this weekend.

Environment Canada has issued a special weather statement for Southern Ontario, warning of a “significant winter storm” over the weekend.

It says snow will likely start falling Saturday and then turn to rain with freezing rain possible. That could mean treacherous driving conditions right across the region.

Mike Christian, City of Hamilton: “Yeah, for the most part we have on-call staff available, we have after-hours patrol, we utilize all these resources to stay on top of the weather patterns we are expecting so we have people available for those. If it falls, we want to get on the main arterial roads asap. We want to get people in there and get those all cleared up like the Linc, Red Hill and any of our main streets throughout the city.

If it materializes, this would only be the third major storm of the season. Far different from this time last year when the province was digging out from the ice storm that claimed lives and caused millions of dollars in damage.

Mike Christian: “Absolutely. A big difference with the snow fall and everything that we experienced last year, the ice storm went through, affecting the trees and the availability of services. Then this year, thank our lucky stars, everything looks pretty good.”

Not only has this winter been easy on drivers it has been easy on city coffers. Christian estimates the city has saved millions in snow removal costs compared to this time last year: ” What we’ve seen so far it’s been pretty good and we’re expecting that trend to continue but anything can happen and we’re prepared for whatever comes are way.”

We want to emphasize that the main concern this weekend isn’t snow but freezing rain. If you are travelling be aware that roads could become very icy.