After enjoying a taste of spring, Maritime residents are about to receive a harsh reminder that winter isn't over yet.
Last week temperatures soared into the high teens, melting snow and prompting Maritimers to shed their winter layers, but after a cool, grey day Tuesday, winter appears poised for a comeback.
Wet snow, freezing rain, ice pellets and gusting winds are headed our way and have even begun in some areas.
Heavy snow is in the forecast for Northern New Brunswick while Fredericton, Moncton and northern Nova Scotia will see snow, then freezing rain.
The freezing rain is expected to become snow again Wednesday, and could be whipped by gusting winds, which has utility crews on standby, ready to respond to possible outages.
"At this point, we have our operations employees, our customer interaction centre employees and our communications employees all ready to respond in the event that there would be outages caused by the forecasted weather," confirms NB Power spokesperson Melissa Morton.
Road crews are also ready to start salting, sanding and plowing once the snow starts falling.
"Typically, this time of year, we'd have to open up catch basins...because of the wet weather and there's always a chance of rain coming along with that," says Dylan Gamble, a spokesperson with the city of Fredericton. "But with the weather we had last week, we've got them all opened up so we should be pretty good to go for this storm."
Regardless of what this winter storm brings, the official start of spring is just one week away.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Andy Campbell
