Strong winds, blowing snow and below zero temperatures.
Winter has arrived early in southwestern Ontario.
On Saturday Environment Canada issued its first travel advisory of the season.
They warned of brief periods of heavy snow and icy road conditions early in the afternoon.
A few hours later, some of that snow had melted.
The wintery conditions did cause some problems for drivers.
“Usually we don’t get the rain straight to snow flurries,” says Al Pinheiro of Active Towing and Recovery. “I think this really caught a lot of people off guard.”
Waterloo Regional Police and Guelph Police say they responded to dozens of crashes before 10 a.m.
One of those crashes involved a car and a transit bus.
Mechanics were also kept busy as drivers tried to swap out their regular tires for snow tires.
At M1 Motors they had to turn people away.
“We can’t take any mechanic jobs on Monday,” said Milomir Vasiljevic. “We have to do just tires. Just tires!”
More flurries are in the forecast.
And just a reminder… the first official day of winter is still about six weeks away.
