Snow isn’t a word you expect to hear in August, and it’s certainly not something you would expect to see, but residents of Crow Hill, N.B. saw flurries last night.
Leigh McConnell and her husband were in their garage when the freak summer storm blew in.
"My husband goes...’it’s snowing out!’ and I was like ‘no!’ and I turned around and I looked and it was snowing just as hard as it could snow!” says McConnell. “We both came out and said ‘nobody would ever believe this’ and I texted my sister and she said ‘yeah, what are you smoking?’"
The McConnells have lived in Crow Hill since the late 1990s. They have seen snow as early as October 1, but never in late August.
"There was no accumulation of it really, but it was very fine and it was even blowing...like with the wind, it was blowing, it was too cool," she says.
The sight of the snow may have been cool, but the temperature wasn’t. At the time of the isolated squall, it was roughly 22 degrees Celsius in Crow Hill.
While snow in the summer isn’t common, CTV meteorologist Cindy Day says it is possible.
“Well, a summertime snow squall isn’t as uncommon as you may think,” says Day. “It happens late August, early September every year when the first blast of cold air comes out of the Arctic. Instead of having an afternoon shower develop when the snow warms the air, the air is cold above so it falls in the form of snow.”
While no residents reported seeing a single flake about a kilometre away in Birdton, McConnell says she and her husband weren’t the only ones to witness the wintry scene in Crow Hill.
She spoke with a friend at a local store Thursday morning who had spotted the squall too.
“I said ‘I’m going to tell you something and you’re not going to believe this!’…I started telling her and she said, ‘you know, I seen it!’”
Conditions were back to normal today and Crow Hill residents hope they stay that way. They say they see enough snow during winter months; they don’t need to see it in the summer too.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Andy Campbell
