‘Significant weather event’ declared as snow blankets Mississauga
Published January 12, 2024 at 5:37 pm
Mississauga has declared tonight’s storm a “significant weather event,” impacting the city’s snow clearance schedule.
They made the declaration at 4 p.m. Jan 12th to address the winter storm hitting the GTA. Environment Canada expects five to 10 centimetres of snow to hit the city throughout the evening, before turning to rain around midnight.
As of this writing, it is zero degrees in Mississauga, but it feels closer to minus eight thanks to the wind. On average the wind is whipping by at 40 km/h but is gusting up to 70 km/h during strong blasts. This has resulted in heavily blowing snow and reduced visibility.
These conditions led to the city’s announcement. Generally, the city expects snowplows to clear all roads within 36 hours, though the expectations are tiered based on the amount of snow. However during a “significant weather event,” that timeline is reset when the storm ends.
Plows will be out in force maintaining the roads throughout the evening, but the roads will not be cleared until at most 12 hours after the snow stops. However, major roads are addressed before residential streets. As such the city’s main thoroughfares will be cleaned off within 12 hours of the snow stopping. Mississauga tracks all its plows live.
The storm also prompted a warning from Peel Regional Police. “Some pretty fierce winter weather is forecasted this weekend. If you have to drive, please give yourself extra time and make sure you clean all the snow off of your car,” they wrote.
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In a video released on social media, they advised drivers who need to go out this weekend to give themselves plenty of extra time to get where they need to be. “When the weather’s bad we have to go slow,” said Cst. Ty Bell-Morena.