01/02/2026
WHY INTERIOR SOUTH & SAINT JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK RECEIVED FAR MORE SNOW
New Brunswick Storm and Weather Centre | Meteorological Analysis
A highly organized coastal winter storm set up a classic mesoscale snow band across Saint John, Moncton, and Southeast New Brunswick, producing significantly higher snowfall totals than the rest of the province.
Here’s why 👇
🌊 1️⃣ Bay of Fundy Moisture Feed
Strong east-northeast winds wrapped Atlantic moisture off the Bay of Fundy straight into southern and southeastern New Brunswick.
That moisture was then forced upward as it encountered colder air over land — a process called isentropic lift — causing snowfall rates to explode.
This is why snowfall was far heavier south of Fredericton and along the Fundy coast.
🌀 2️⃣ Deformation Zone Locked in Place
The storm’s surface low stalled just south of Nova Scotia, placing Saint John → Moncton → Northumberland Strait inside the deformation band — the zone where air is forced to stretch, rotate, and rise.
This is the snow machine of winter storms.
Inside this band:
Snow falls longer
Snow falls harder
Snow accumulates much faster
Northern and western NB were outside this zone and only caught the lighter wrap-around precipitation.
❄ 3️⃣ Frontogenesis = Snowfall Explosion
A strong temperature gradient formed between:
Milder Atlantic air to the south
Arctic air over central and northern NB
That sharp contrast triggered frontogenesis, which causes:
> Air to rapidly lift and cool → snow bands to intensify
This is what produced orange and red radar returns over Saint John and Southeast NB while areas like Edmundston and Bathurst remained in lighter blues and greens.
🧭 4️⃣ Storm Track Was Perfect for the South — Bad for the North
The low tracked just south of Nova Scotia — the worst-case snow track for Fundy and Southeast NB.
That puts:
Southeast NB → in deep moisture & lift
Northwest NB → in dry air and subsidence
Result:
Saint John saw 30–40 cm
Edmundston saw a fraction of that
🧠 Bottom Line
This was not a “province-wide snowstorm.”
It was a banded coastal cyclone, and Saint John, Moncton, and Southeast NB were under the fire hose.
Once that deformation band locked in, it simply would not move.
That’s why your snow totals were so much higher.
CJ Bernard
