A major snowstorm has walloped the south B.C. coast, including the Gulf Islands.
As of 9 a.m. Tuesday, precipitation had almost stopped after about 22 hours of continuous snowfall, with accumulations reported up to 50 centimetres (20 inches) at higher elevations on Salt Spring.
According to BC Hydro’s power outage website page at 9 a.m., all of the Pender Islands and many areas of Galiano, Pender, Mayne, Saturna and Salt Spring Island are without electrical service. Most of the Salt Spring outages have been in areas serving 10 to 100 homes, but the Pender outage was connected to one affecting the south-east side of Salt Spring from just south of Ganges to Beaver Point. More than 5,000 homes have been affected by power outages on the five islands.
All schools in the Gulf Islands are closed.
The ferry from Long Harbour was cancelled this morning, and the first Fulford Harbour-Swartz Bay and Crofton-Vesuvius sailings delayed due to crewing issues.
The Environment Canada forecast was for temperatures to rise to 5º Celsius today, and to 6º tomorrow, with rain.