It was chaos on the roads across much of southern Alberta Thursday morning as a spring snowstorm walloped the area with heavy snow and high winds, creating treacherous driving conditions and prompting a warning from RCMP for motorists to avoid travelling if possible.

Some schools also cancelled classes, and transit buses were either not running or snarled in traffic as they struggled to make it up hills in the Calgary area.

“Snowmageddon” is how Global Calgary’s traffic and weather specialist Leslie Horton described the mess.

“Minus eight feels like minus mid-teen temperatures [with the wind chill]. Low visibility, falling snow, blowing snow. Yes, it is the middle of April. Fifteen to 25 centimetres, up to 40 centimetres when it’s all done,” Horton said.

“It’s just sitting over top of us, started with some rain, that froze, then the snow fell overnight, will continue to fall for the rest of the day.”

South of Calgary, near High River, RCMP responded to reports of a pileup involving multiple vehicles that shut down southbound lanes of Highway 2 and prompted police to ask motorists to avoid the area if possible.

“North, south, east and west we’ve got poor highway conditions with slippery roads, snow falling, snow swirling, reduced visibility,” Horton said.

While the city of Calgary was under a “yellow” snowfall warning from Environment Canada, a large area east of the city was under an “orange” snowfall warning, with the national weather agency advising of drifting snow up to 70 centimetres deep in some areas along the Trans-Canada Highway near Gleichen, about an hour west of Calgary.

“We’ve got to make like bears and hibernate,” Neil Swanson said as he worked to shovel the heavy snow from the sidewalk in front of his house and several neighbouring homes in Calgary.

While the snow was an unwelcome sight to most people, April is, on average, the second snowiest month in southern Alberta.

“I’ve been fooled so many times by spring, you know. Oh, spring’s here,” Swanson joked. “I was wearing my sport coat just the other day. You know, it felt really good. And now — yeah, I’m not going to be fooled anymore.”

The storm is expected to move out of the Calgary area late Thursday before taking aim at Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Any accumulated snow should also be short-lived.

The forecast for Friday in Calgary is 5 C with a mix of sun and cloud and the possibility of showers.

By Sunday, the temperature is forecast to return to a more seasonal 13 C and the forecast high for Tuesday is 23 C.

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