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During the winter months, New Brunswickers experience a wide variety of extreme weather conditions, some of which have very high impact in the region. At this time of the year the jet stream normally lies near our latitude, so weather systems moving along it tend to move fairly rapidly across the region.
What makes the following storm so notable is that the system moved rather slowly across the region and many extreme weather conditions such as heavy snow, rain, freezing rain, high winds and wind chill were experienced first hand in the province over a prolonged period of time. Parts of the province were hit very hard with these extreme weather conditions and power failures. The result was very difficult living conditions for up to 5 days for some residents.
On Saturday February 1, 2003, a low pressure system located along the U.S eastern seaboard was tracking toward Nova Scotia. A high pressure area was over New Brunswick and moving slowly away in response to this system approaching from the southwest. This system was moving in slowly, located near Yarmouth Nova Scotia early Sunday afternoon, Feb 2nd then it then moved to lie near the northern tip of Cape Breton 24 hours later
Due to a leading impulse ahead of this system, precipitation in the form of snow began in southeast New Brunswick on Saturday morning. As the low slowly approached, warm air associated with it overrode the cold air that was already in place over the province. This resulted in a prolonged period of heavy freezing rain over southern regions. The exception was for communities along the Fundy coast where temperatures remained just above the freezing mark through much of the event. The warmer air aloft never made it to northern regions so heavy snowfall, not freezing rain, was the main problem there. On Feb 3, in the wake of this system, strong northwest winds gusting to 80 km/h developed. These winds, combined with plunging temperatures, resulted in high wind chills across the province.
This high impact weather event brought over 24 hours of continuous freezing precipitation to southeast New Brunswick with ice build up in excess of 30 mm in some areas. Communities along the Fundy coast reported 40 to 50 mm of rain. The northern half of the province was covered with a white blanket of snow ranging from 15 to 25 cm in the capital city and Miramichi to in excess of 50 cm in both Bathurst and St-Leonard.
The most severe impact of this storm was the prolonged loss of power for more than 63,000 customers of NB Power in the southeast where the heavy freezing rain brought down trees and power lines. The impact of this power failure was further increased by the fact that there were strong winds and very cold temperatures giving high wind chills in the wake of the storm. Some homes were without power and heat for up to 5 days making for very difficult conditions for some residents.
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The thick layers of ice on trees eventually caused many branches to break off. Photo: NB Power
Power crews worked late into the night for several days in ordered to fix all the snapped power lines caused by the freezing rain. Photo: NB Power
Poor road conditions caused by snow, freezing rain, unplowed sidewalks, and fallen trees made driving very dangerous. Photo: NB Power
Power crews had to remove broken and bent branches on hundreds of trees before power could be restored. Photo: NB Power
Strong winds, blowing snow, and freezing rain made walking very difficult. Photo: NB Power
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