For the second day in a row, school buses have been cancelled in the Lambton-Kent region due to inclement weather.
The transportation services for the Lambton-Kent and St. Clair Catholic District School Boards announced that buses in all zones were cancelled shortly before 6 a.m. Buses in the Lambton area for the French school board were also cancelled.
Sarnia Christian School will be closed on Thursday.
The Catholic school board said all schools and offices in Sarnia-Lambton will be open on Thursday, and teachers will be available through their learning management systems to provide asynchronous learning to students who are unable to attend school but wish to participate.
The public school board said all elementary schools in Sarnia-Lambton are open Thursday while several schools in Chatham-Kent are closed because of power outages. Sarnia-Lambton LKDSB high school students will engage in one-day remote, teacher-led virtual learning.
A freezing rain warning issued for most of southwestern Ontario earlier this week was replaced Thursday morning with a freezing drizzle advisory.
Ahead of a mix of winter precipitation, school buses were cancelled on Wednesday as well.
Although weather conditions are expected to improve on Thursday, forecasters still expect driving conditions to be slippery in the morning.
"I think it still will be a messy commute," said Environment Canada Warning Preparedness Meteorologist Geoff Coulson.
"As the morning [passes] Thursday, temperatures are going to start to climb and we'll start to see periods of freezing drizzle or ice pellets change over to plain drizzle by late in the morning. So the worst of the freezing rain will be over by that point."
Coulson also said Friday is expected to be the coldest day of the week with a daytime high of -6C (21F).
"But the cold isn't expected to last. We're expected to bounce back to above-seasonal temperatures for the weekend and into next week," he said.
Lambton Public Health issued a cold weather alert on Wednesday ahead of the winter storm.
