Snow day in Ottawa with messy commute, buses cancelled

Overnight snow that continued into Wednesday morning forced the cancellation of buses across Ottawa and the region.

All buses from the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority from both the English Catholic and public schools are cancelled. Same goes for students bussed to French Catholic schools in the city and surrounding area by Consortium de Transport Scolaire d’Ottawa.

For students in the Ottawa Valley buses are also cancelled due to “poor road conditions from overnight precipitation with more precipitation forecasted this morning,” the Renfrew County Joint Transportation Consortium said in a post on X.

All schools remain open on Jan. 29.

Ontario Provincial Police in the east region said that officers have responded to more than 40 collisions since 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Many involved vehicles ending up in the ditch and “most” were minor collisions, the force said in a post.

Snow is expected to end this morning according to Environment Canada, but flurries are still possible throughout the day. The weather agency believes there will be about 5 centimetres of accumulation by the end of the day.

Wind chill will hover around -19 C and continue to drop on Wednesday evening to -28 C. With temperatures that low, Environment Canada notes there is a risk of frostbite.

More flurries are in the forecast for Thursday where the wind chill will keep temperatures low around -28 C in the morning and rising to around -10 C by the afternoon.