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Newfoundland wakes to snow in June

Temperatures dipped to about -1 C and the wind chill sank to about -7 C in Newfoundland
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Some people waking up in parts of Newfoundland got a wintry jolt when they looked out their window Monday and saw white.

A light dusting of snow blanketed areas around Gander and St. John’s, where temperatures dipped to about -1 C and the wind chill sank to about -7 C.

“There’s a full on blizzard outside …. it’s June,” one Memorial University student tweeted Monday morning. “I’m filing a grievance with Mother Nature.”

She wasn’t the only Newfoundlander — weary from a cold, snowy winter — who called it a cruel spring joke and took to Twitter to express their exasperation.

“Seriously?” wrote one, while another joked, “Nothing like a June snow to make you question your choices in life #nlwx.”

Musician/author Alan Doyle chimed in with this dejected comment: “Lovely bit of snow on the go” and the hashtag, #jaysus.

RELATED: Newfoundland hit by winter storm

Others posted pictures of barbecues, cars and lawns covered in the unwanted white stuff. One dad tweeted a picture of his young son wearing a winter hat, boots and ski jacket, with the caption: “Off to school in June.”

In St. John’s, softball games were postponed because of cold that saw people bundled up in winter coats and stocking caps to walk the dog.

Several people used the snow on their car windshields to write, June 4?

RELATED: 30 C in B.C., 30 cm of snow expected for eastern Canada

Brian Walsh, a meteorologist with PAL Aerospace, said the wintry weather this late in the year is rare, noting it’s been 22 years since St. John’s airport last recorded snow in June. The wind chill in St. John’s was -6.2 C Sunday evening and -8 overnight.

Other parts of Atlantic Canada didn’t fare much better, with Halifax seeing temperatures of about -1 C, Charlottetown 1 C and Fredericton at 2 C.

But those places were spared snow. Up to five centimetres were forecast for Newfoundland’s northern peninsula, while forecasts for the island’s west coast were for up to 10 cm.

This latest blast of winter weather comes almost two weeks after a late spring storm buried cars in snow, closed a slew of Newfoundland schools, and dumped more than 35 centimetres of snow at Gander International Airport on May 24.

Strong northeast winds gusted to 80 kilometres an hour and the temperature hovered at around -2 C in Gander, bringing back memories of a May storm in 2013 that brought more than 69 centimetres of snow to the community.

The Canadian Press

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