By the end of Friday, Moose Jaw has a 90 per cent chance of having between 10 and 15 centimetres of snow.
According to the Weather Network website on Thursday, forecasters predict that Moose Jaw will receive between two and four centimetres of snow Friday morning and close to five centimeters Friday afternoon with winds blowing at 30 kilometres per hour.
The snowfall is expected to start Thursday night around 9 p.m. with close to one centimetre overnight. The snowfall is anticipated to continue until Saturday evening. The forecasted high for Friday is -7 C, but -15 C with the wind chill.
“You’ve got to remember it’s time to slow down and give yourself more stopping time. Those intersections get icy and can take a long period to get stopped,” said Ray Francis, paramedic and the director of community relations and training with the Moose Jaw and District EMS. “Just leave a little earlier for every destination you’re going because it takes a little bit longer to get there.”
The city website states that heavy snow must be removed from city sidewalks adjacent to all businesses 48 hours after the snowfall stops, in accordance with the snow removal bylaw. It is illegal to deposit snow or ice from private property, including private driveways, service station lots or parking lots, onto city property.
The engineering department will plow streets on a priority basis, but most residential streets are not included unless they are “exceptionally bad.”
Francis said people should shovel snow on their residential sidewalks as soon as possible.
“The sooner you do it the easier it is to do. It gets packed down by people walking on it or people driving on it ... If it’s snowing an awful lot, it doesn’t hurt to do it two or three times too,” he said. “Make sure you take time for rest periods because we don’t want some sort of medical issue to come up like a cardiac situation or something like that to sneak up on you.”
For more information, see an upcoming edition of the Times-Herald.
