Snow hits Metro Vancouver

Residents of some parts of Metro Vancouver awoke to slushy snow on Thursday morning, while other areas just got cold rain.

The snow was reported to be heaviest in Burnaby and on Burnaby Mountain where articulated buses were not able to make the climb up the hill to SFU, forcing TransLink to add shuttle busesto take passengers up to the campus.

Up to eight centimetres of snow was also reported in higher elevations in South Vancouver, Port Coquitlam and the North Shore, but the forecast was calling for heavy rain for the rest of the day and into Friday to wash most of it away.

The snow has been good news for local ski hills, which were plagued bywarm weather and rain through much of February.

All three hills on Vancouver's North Shore are open and reporting up to 33 cm of new snow in the past 24 hours, giving kids on spring break a great chance to hit the slopes.

Heavy snow was also falling on the mountain passes of several southern B.C. highways, including the Coquihalla Highway 5, Highway 3 and 3B, and Highway 97C.