School buses cancelled outside eastern Ontario's biggest cities
School buses are running in Ottawa, Kingston and Belleville and cancelled in most other parts of eastern Ontario on a deeply slushy Wednesday.
Winter storm, snow and rain warnings covered almost all of the Ottawa-Gatineau region Tuesday. All but a snowfall warning for Mont-Laurier were done by 6 a.m. Wednesday.
The storm generally included the mix of snow, ice and rain predicted: Ottawa's international airport recorded snow from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., two hours of freezing rain and then rain not long after midnight.
Messy roads mean school bus cancellations for all schools overseen by Student Transportation of Eastern Ontario, the Renfrew County Joint Transportation Consortium and the Consortium de transport scolaire de l'Est.
There are partial cancellations elsewhere: the Consortium de transport scolaire d'Ottawa is only running buses in Ottawa, Kingston and Trenton and the Tri-Board consortium has concentrated closures in its north, running them in places such as Belleville, Kingston and Tweed.
School buses are running in Ottawa and Western Quebec. Agencies in both areas say to expect delays.
The capital got about nine centimetres of snow and two millimetres of rain at its international airport Tuesday, according to Environment Canada. Kingston got about 23 millimetres of rain.
A winter parking ban is in place for Ottawa from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. A similar ban in Gatineau was suspended at 6 a.m.
Ontario Provincial Police closed two westbound lanes of Highway 417 at Ottawa's downtown Metcalfe Street exit because of flooding until about 7:30 a.m.
Ottawa is forecast to remain above zero Wednesday until the evening.
