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Good morning Barrie!

It's an icy Good Friday but we're in for a weekend melt
good friday 2
The storm left just about everything coated in a layer of ice and brought power outages to most of Simcoe County. Sue Sgambati/BarrieToday

The freezing rain warning has ended but Environment Canada has now issued a special weather statement.

The ice storm knocked out power to more than 18,000 Barrie customers.

Much of Simcoe County was in the dark due to downed tree branches hitting hydro wires.

PowerStream Inc. estimates power will be restored to the vast majority of customers in Barrie by 8 a.m.

Fresh crews headed out at 6 a.m.

Today's forecast calling for the chance of flurries or freezing drizzle this morning, clearing near noon, wind gusting to 40 km/h this morning and the high 2.

Sunny tomorrow with a high 8.

Cloudy, chance of showers Easter Sunday with a high 11.

Easter Monday will bring a mix of sun and cloud and a high 0.

Here are the details of the special weather statement in effect for:

  • Barrie - Collingwood - Hillsdale
  • Midland - Coldwater - Orr Lake
  • Orillia - Lagoon City - Washago

Brisk winds forecast with potentially significant impacts on power outages due to falling limbs and trees.

The major ice storm which ravaged many parts of Southern Ontario with substantial ice accumulations has essentially ended.

The centre of the low pressure is moving across Eastern Ontario early this morning.

As it continues to moves off to the east, brisk northwest winds of 20 km/h gusting to 40 or 50 km/h will spread across parts of Southern Ontario.

The winds have already developed from Kitchener-Waterloo towards Hamilton.

They should increase by 8 or 9 am around the Greater Toronto Area as well as regions impacted more severely by the ice, such as Orangeville and Alliston.

They will persist for several hours before diminishing this afternoon.

There are more than 90,0000 customers without power as of 6 am.

This number is expected to rise due to wind bringing down more heavily-weighted limbs and trees especially over the higher terrain of the Dundalk Highlands and to the west of the Niagara Escarpment.

This includes some of the worst affected areas where over 3 centimetres of ice build-up has occurred without any melting.

Temperatures are expected to rise above the freezing mark by early afternoon as the late March sun returns and aids in melting some of the ice.

Much milder conditions are also expected on the weekend.

Please continue to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada.

To report severe weather, send an email to [email protected] or tweet reports to #ONStorm.


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Sue Sgambati

About the Author: Sue Sgambati

Sue has had a 30-year career in journalism working for print, radio and TV. She is a proud member of the Barrie community.
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