The first major winter storm of 2024 has led to a day off for students across New Brunswick.

All anglophone and francophone schools in the province have closed their doors on Wednesday.

UNB Fredericton, UNB Saint John and St. Thomas University will delay opening until noon.

Oulton College has closed its three facilities for the morning and will re-evaluate for the afternoon at 11 a.m. Morning classes will continue online.

The Moncton campus of l’Université de Moncton is closed until at least noon. The university will announce by 10:30 a.m. whether the campus will reopen or remain closed.

NBCC has closed its campuses in Saint Andrews, Fredericton, Woodstock and Miramichi. Its corporate office will also be closed for the day.

The New Brunswick College of Craft and Design in Fredericton is closed for the day. Crandall University is also closed for the day, but classes will continue online.

Weather forecast and warnings

Areas including Saint John and Grand Manan remain under snowfall, rainfall and wind warnings.

Other regions including St. Stephen, the Kennebecasis Valley, Sussex, Moncton and Southeast New Brunswick, Kent County, Grand Lake and Fredericton are under snowfall and wind warnings.

Up to 20 centimetres of snow is possible before the changeover to rain Wednesday morning and up to 30 millimetres of rain could fall in areas under rainfall warnings.

Forecasters said there is also a risk of ice pellets and freezing rain as the temperature rises and precipitation changes to rain.

Strong winds will also be an issue with this system, gusting to between 90 and 100 kilometres per hour.

Meanwhile, northern New Brunswick is under winter storm warnings, with up to 25 centimetres of snow and strong winds in the forecast there.

Conditions are expected to improve from west to east by Wednesday evening.

Impacts on travel

Travel is not recommended on a number of New Brunswick highways due to poor road conditions, according to New Brunswick 511.

That includes Route 1 between the St. Stephen area and Saint John, Route 2 between Longs Creek and the New Brunswick/Quebec border, and Route 95 between Woodstock and the Canada/U.S. border.

The latest road conditions can be found on the New Brunswick 511 website here.

Some flight cancellations are being reported at the Greater Moncton International Airport and the Fredericton International Airport. There are currently no cancellations at the Saint John Airport.

Bay Ferries has cancelled all of Wednesday’s crossings between Saint John and Digby, N.S., as well as Thursday’s 9 a.m. departure from Saint John.

The Grand Manan ferry has been suspended until further notice due to weather conditions.

Power outages

There are a handful of outages being reported across New Brunswick as of early Wednesday morning.

However, with high winds in the forecast, residents are urged to be prepared for potential outages.

NB Power said Wednesday that it continued to refine its response based on the latest weather updates.

More than 130,000 customers lost power when high winds tore through the province before Christmas. It took crews more than a week to get everyone reconnected.

NB Power outages can be found here, while Saint John Energy outages can be found here.