With more winter weather in the forecast for Metro Vancouver starting Thursday night, SFU has announced the closures of its campuses for Friday (Dec. 23).
"Due to anticipated hazardous winter conditions, all SFU campuses will be closed on Friday, December 23," a tweet from the university said.
"Buildings will remain open, but all libraries and the Lorne Davies Sports Complex will be closed. SFU Burnaby Residence and Housing and front desk remain open."
'A really difficult 48 hours'
"It's going to be a really difficult 48 hours in Metro Vancouver," Environment Canada meteorologist Brian Proctor told Vancouver Is Awesome.
That's due to precipitation headed to Vancouver in the form of snow, rain, and freezing rain.
"It's this transition from the snow to the rain that's going to be really problematic," Proctor says.4
Traffic peril brought by freezing rain
Freezing rain occurs when snow falls through a warm layer of air and melts, but then lands in freezing temperatures at ground level and turns to solid ice.
"It reaches the ground as a supercooled liquid droplet," Proctor says.
In this case, the Lower Mainland is expecting a warm Pacific storm to make landfall over the next 24 hours, while the area is still covered in an Arctic air mass that's travelled down from Yukon. Interior cities are seeing temperatures as low as the mid -40s right now.
After several days of subzero temperatures, the ground itself is frozen, and covered in snow, meaning any liquid that lands on it will freeze.
At first, more snow will fall, then freezing rain, then rain. Ice pellets may also be mixed in.
That transition will be fast, happening over a period of about two days starting tonight, Dec. 22, Proctor says.
"There'll be mixed rain and snow conditions by the end of the day in Vancouver," he says.
That means potential havoc on the streets.
- with files from Brendan Kergin, Vancouver Is Awesome
