While Southern Ontario, including the GTA, braces for 10-15 cms Saturday, Newfoundlanders could be digging out from 5 times that —  75 cms.

St. John’s and neighbouring municipalities declared a state of emergency, ordering businesses to close while all vehicles, except emergency crews, have been told to stay off the roads.

St. John’s Mayor Danny Breen says the possibility of power failures was a deciding factor inn ordering the state of emergency.

Along with all the snow, winds are expected to gust as high as 150 km/ in coastal areas.

The storm’s prompted the Newfoundland and Labrador government to pull plows from regional highway.

Mayor Breen does not recall the city facing such a severe storm in decades, adding the last time St. John’s declared a state of emergency was an ice storm in 1984.