Northern Ontario: Winter Storm Outlook for Saturday, March 5 to Sunday, March 6, 2022

Forecast Discussion

A messy winter storm is setting its sights on Northeastern Ontario for the weekend with a variety of precipitation types associated with it. Precipitation from this storm will begin to work into the province around Lake Superior during the afternoon on Saturday. It appears that this initial round of precipitation should come down in the form of snow stretching from Thunder Bay through Marathon and into Cochrane. Later in the afternoon, more persistent bands of precipitation will spread across the region where we will likely start to see some ice pellets mix in around the Marathon and Wawa region.

As we head into the evening and early overnight hours. we will see the precipitation spread further to the south which will lead to the development of a fairly expansive line of freezing rain. Locations such as Sault Ste. Marie, Chapleau and Temiskaming Shores can expect several hours of freezing rain overnight into Sunday morning. Ice accretion here could exceed 12mm which could lead to a significant impact on travel along with power outages. Areas around the northern shoreline of Georgian Bay such as Elliot Lake, Sudbury and North Bay could also see this freezing rain risk. However, it should slowly transition over to rain early Sunday morning.

Heavy snow along with ice pellets will continue to the north throughout the day on Sunday. We’re looking at widespread snowfall accumulation of between 15-25cm (locally up to 30cm) for Marathon, Kapuskasing and Cochrane. A zone including Wawa and Timmins will see a bit of everything with 5-15cm of snow, up to 5cm of ice pellets and even a few hours of freezing rain possible. Snowfall totals will decrease further to the northwest where less moisture will be present from this system. Precipitation will taper off by the late afternoon on Sunday.