Early Snowflakes Fall on Canadian Yard Already Strung With Christmas Lights

Wet snowflakes drifted down over a front yard in New Brunswick on Friday, October 16, as an early taste of winter reached eastern Canada with more than two months still to go before Christmas.

Bigdazw filmed himself outside his home in Miramichi as large flakes fell steadily around him and landed in his hair and on his shoulders. “So here we are, the 16th of October in Miramichi, and so it begins,” he says, before nodding to the tall evergreen behind him. “We’ve even got the lights up on the tree out here. It’ll be our first time lighting it up for Christmas.” He adds that the tree is “taking a heck of a lot of lights” and signs off with the Australian farewell “hooroo.” The snow wasn’t settling yet: the lawn stayed green, the road behind him was only wet, and the trees across the street were mostly bare or still holding on to their brown and yellow autumn leaves.

The flurries came as the first snow of the fall season spread across parts of eastern Canada. Earlier in the week, the first snowflakes of the fall had already been reported in the Maritime provinces. On Friday morning, snow also fell in northern New Brunswick and in neighboring Quebec, where a thin white layer covered the ground in several areas and made travel harder.

In Quebec, police said a vehicle ended up in a ditch on snow-covered Highway 85, and the driver was not injured. In another crash, a car rolled over and the driver was taken to hospital without serious injuries. Authorities urged drivers to slow down on snowy roads, avoid braking suddenly and leave plenty of distance between vehicles. Garages in the region said they had been overwhelmed with calls from drivers rushing to get their winter tires put on, which Quebec requires by December 1.