All N.B. schools closed as fierce storm covers roads with ice

All New Brunswick schools are closed Thursday, with some students having their third snow day this week.

A fast-moving system is bringing snow, ice pellets, rain or a mix of all three to all parts of the province. Snow began around midnight AT and had changed to rain in the south by morning.

Officials are warning of localized flooding and unsafe roads and asking people to avoid travel if they can.

The storm is expected to bring as much as 30 centimetres of snow in the north and 50 millimetres of rain in the south

Environment Canada says snow will change to rain over all but northwestern parts of the province by this afternoon, before tapering to scattered showers and flurries later Thursday evening.

Felicia Murphy, spokesperson for highway operation company SNC-Lavalin, said travel is not recommended on the Trans-Canada Highway between the Quebec border and Longs Creek, west of Fredericton. She said travel is also not recommended on Route 95, from the United States border to Woodstock.

"They've deteriorated over night," she told Information Morning Fredericton. "The roads are all snow-covered. There's icy sections throughout."

She said visibility is also poor because of drifting snow in different parts of the highway.

RCMP said driving conditions on the Trans-Canada are "extremely poor."

About 1,400 N.B. Power customers are without electricity.

The biggest outage is affecting about 1,300 customers on the islands of Grand Manan and White Head. The estimated restoration time is between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

As rain falls over snow, it's expected to cause flooding and road closures, especially in some parts of Saint John.

Kevin Clifford, the city's EMO director and fire chief, said the combination of rain, melting snow and the high tide at 3:20 p.m. AT could cause pooling in some areas.

"Be mindful about what might look like just a pool of water sometimes, in an event like today, you'll have erosion of the underground," he told Information Morning Saint John.