It didn’t take long for the new year’s first snowstorm.
After Friday’s snowfall, Barrie is getting 10 to 20 centimetres of the white stuff today, and as much as another 25 cm tonight, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Kevin Shuttleworth was out Saturday morning with his snowblower, cleaning his driveway and the sidewalk in front of his Innisfil Street home.
“I just ran out of gas, so I have to do it the old-fashioned way,” he said, taking up his snow shovel. “This is the fourth or fifth time I have cleared the driveway in the last few days.
“It’s not letting up,” he added, as the snow continued to fall. “It’s just band after band (of snow) coming in.”
Shuttleworth looked up and down the street, which was partially cleared.
“I just did the sidewalks an hour ago. You wouldn’t even know I shovelled.”
Steve Kearsey found a full driveway of snow at his Adelaide Street home at midday Saturday.
“I didn’t realize there was so much,” he said, idling his snowblower. “I would have come out yesterday (Friday).”
Clint Reynolds and his daughters, Freya, who is eight years old, and five-year-old Margot, were enjoying the storm in from of their Holgate Street home.
“Believe it or not, I do like shovelling snow,” said Reynolds, as his girls played with a sled and their dog, Bea. “It keeps me active.”
Freya said the snow was fun to play in; Margot said she liked sledding.
“My grandfather said as he grew older, he liked the snow a little less every year,” Reynolds said. “The trend is we are not getting the winters I got when I was a kid (in Barrie).
“I would say the patterns are changing. It does impact our everyday lives.”
Reynolds noted Barrie winters have a pattern of snow, melt and rain — noting the nearby Shear Park outdoor ice rink was barely available last winter because the weather was so mild at times.
But there is no lack of winter today.
And on Innisfil Street, closer to Adelaide Street, a Barrie Transit vehicle took two or three attempts to get up the hill, but got no traction on the road — which had been cleared, but was snowy again.
Aidan Merulla came to Barrie from his Mississauga home on Saturday morning, his pickup truck equipped with a plow, but he was not working this snowy day.
“It was just slippery on Little Avenue, and that hill on Little is brutal,” he said of the drive through Barrie to Colgate Street. “I had to put it (his truck) in four-wheel drive.
“I’m just happy we didn’t have anything like this, there (in Mississauga).”
Sunday’s Barrie forecast is also for flurries and local snow squalls.
