The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador was hit by a massive Bomb Cyclone blizzard this weekend, leaving its capitol city buried under the heaviest snowfall ever recorded in its history.
Rob Carroll, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said St. John’s had experienced a one-day snowfall Saturday of 76.2 centimeters, or 30 inches, breaking the previous record of 68.4 centimeters, 27 inches, on April 5, 1999.
A storm system that had slammed the northeastern US earlier in the week with strong winds, snowfall and lake-effect squalls exploded into a ‘bomb cyclone’ on Friday after tracking into the Atlantic Ocean, AccuWeather reports. The storm then set its sights on portions of Atlantic Canada.
Newfoundland’s premier asked for the Canadian military’s help as residents of the province’s capital struggled to tunnel out from buried homes. Social media posts coming from St. John’s reveal time lapse footage of cars and streets literally fading into white.
Bassem Elshahat posted a picture of his porch in St. John’s at the start of the a 24-hour cycle
An update of the images shows Elshahat’s porch starting to disappear, as well as the street beyond
Another update shows the street level starting to level out with the porch. No more steps are visible in the footage
The street level in another update is higher than the porch, and cars are buried
A later view from the porch reveals a surreal image of snow and nothing else but the faint glow of a street light in the distance
Another update shows the snow now overtaking Elshahat’s home in St. John’s
A bomb cyclone forms when air pressure drops 24 millibars or more in a 24-hour period. Premier Dwight Ball said he had asked for the federal government’s assistance, including mobilizing the armed forces, after the blizzard battered eastern Newfoundland.
Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Bay Roberts said search teams were looking for 26-year-old Joshua Wall, who remained missing after leaving his home in Roaches Line, a small community about 70 kilometers, or 44 miles, west of the capital, to walk to a friend’s home.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Bay Roberts said search teams were looking for 26-year-old Joshua Wall, who remained missing after leaving his home in Roaches Line, a small community about 70 kilometers, or 44 miles, west of the capital, to walk to a friend’s home
St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen said he has lived in the city most of his life and has never seen a storm of this magnitude.
‘I’ve never seen the combination of the amount of snow, the rate of snowfall and the wind speed that we’ve had here over the past couple of days,’ Breen said.
Winds at the St. John’s International Airport were recorded at between 120 and 157 kph, or 75 and 98 mph, at the height of the storm.
Early Saturday morning when the snowplow came to clear his street, Breen said, he could hear the vehicle but he couldn’t see it because there was so much snow.
A vehicle has almost disappeared under a blanket of snow covering a street in St. John’s
Snow blocks the entrance to an apartment in St Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, after the heaviest snowfall ever recorded in the capitol buried the city this weekend
A snowy street is pictured in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada
Canadian Armed Forces Operations tweeted it was moving in to help in Newfoundland and Labrador, following an ‘unprecedented winter storm’.
He said he is about 178 centimeters tall, or 5-foot-8, and ‘the snow in front of my front step is over my head. I can’t see either one of my cars in the driveway.’
Intense snowfall brought St. John’s and many other communities to a standstill Friday, then slowed overnight and ended in the capital Saturday morning.
Minister of Natural Resources Seamus O’Regan said the federal government was already working to deploy all available resources on the ground.
O’Regan said the federal government was still working out exactly how the military would be able to help the city.
A dog is pictured struggling to cross the snow covered streets of St. John’s as the blizzard was coming down
A half buried car is parked in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador
An image posted by Ryan Crocker on Facebook of a street buried under snow in St. John’s
St. John’s and several nearby communities declared states of emergency late Friday morning that have remained in effect.
Breen couldn’t say when officials might lift the state of emergency order, which required businesses to close and all non-emergency vehicles to stay off streets.
‘The roads are impassable and that’s it, there’s nothing that can be done,’ Andrew Piercey, a dispatcher with Jiffy Cabs in St. John’s, said at midday.
He described an exhausting walk through snowdrifts to get to work, spending more than an hour to travel about a mile.
When he got to work, he realized there were no taxis to dispatch.