A fast-moving storm hit the Steinbach area around 6:30 Thursday morning causing whiteout conditions and forcing all school divisions in the southeast to close. Hanover School Superintendent Randy Dueck says, so far, it's a normal winter when it comes to closures.

"This is now the third one for us this winter. Probably, on average, we have about two or three. We got a little bit lucky that some of the worst weather happened during the Christmas Break because I'm pretty sure we would have closed at least twice during the Christmas Break. But it came during that time so it worked out well for us."

Dueck says they normally make the decision to close schools by 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. But, he adds, today was unusual because the storm only arrived around 6:30 and they then did their due diligence, checking road conditions, before making the announcement at 7:00 a.m.