End of snow days coming for students in some B.C. school districts

KELOWNA, B.C. – Students in parts of British Columbia will have to come to terms with reality on Wednesday, when it’s time to get back to class after two snow days extended their winter vacation.

Schools in Vernon and the North Okanagan-Shuswap region will reopen after crews were able to clear snow from parking lots and walkways.

But there’s no word yet on whether schools in Kelowna and Kamloops will also open.

Heavy snow forced the closure of schools in the province’s central and north Okanagan, Vernon and parts of the Fraser-Cascade districts.

Two storms dumped as much as 33.5 centimetres of snow in Kelowna, although some areas in the Thompson-Okanagan recorded even more snow.

Environment Canada said that was shy of a two-day record snowfall of 38.9 centimetres set in December 1949.

Snow caused chaos in the Okanagan region this week, including high avalanche hazards, treacherous road conditions, school closures and power outages.

Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops was closed Monday but opened Tuesday, though spokeswoman Diana Skoglund said one building that includes food services and a bookstore was unstaffed because of a power outage overnight.

Environment Canada meteorologist Ross Macdonald said the snow kept falling until late Monday night before a storm moved northward. (CKIZ, The Canadian Press)

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version incorrectly reported that a snowfall broke a record set in 1899