The calendar may have said that Thursday was the first day of spring, but Jack Frost is hearing none of it. Canada's top weatherman is forecasting that winter weather is going to cut well into this spring.

Environment Canada Senior Climatologist David Phillips is taking over for Wiarton Willie, saying Canada's famous weather prognosticating groundhog got it wrong when he predicted only six more weeks of winter on Feb. 2.

Phillips says the six more weeks of winter will actually start Wednesday, according to current Environment Canada climate models.

Snow fell in all parts of the Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes Thursday.

Freezing rain closed many schools in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Thursday, as road conditions were treacherous.

Many flights at Halifax's Robert Stanfield International Airport were forced to be re-scheduled, wreaking havoc with many traveller's holiday plans, CTV Atlantic reported.

In Barrie, Ont., slick roads and near-whiteout conditions kept emergency crews busy as several car accidents were reported.

And in Montreal, it was snowing on the first morning of spring and winter's tardiness was having an effect on some businesses, cutting down on springtime sales.

"I just tell them to 'order your ice cream and pretend its summer,'" Dairy Queen employee Melanie Green told CTV Montreal's Rob Lurie.

At Harley Davidson Montreal, Duc Dufour said that customers were buying bikes but the weather kept their machines parked.

"I had one customer that said 'I have 100 feet of distance of four-foot snow to the shack in which my bike is stored, can you help me?'" Dufour said.

Conflicted survey

A new survey suggests Canadians are divided on whether this winter's weather was really that bad.

The Prairies spent weeks under a deep freeze, Atlantic Canada faced regular bouts of freezing rain and most of the country was buried under uncharacteristically heavy snowfalls.

Eastern Canada typically gets 10 to 15 per cent of its annual snowfall after the first day of spring, he said, noting Toronto, Ontario and Montreal still have time to break the snowfall records are in sight of this year. Toronto needs another 20 centimetres, Ottawa needs 25 centimetres and Montreal needs 26 to break existing records.

The good news is we will continue to feel better as the days get longer, Philips said.

But while many Canadians can be heard grumbling about what seems like an endless winter, many don't feel any different that normal, according to a new Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey.

One in 10 people polled said it was a good winter, and 40 per of respondents said they didn't feel any better or worse than normal.

However, half of those surveyed said the weather was unusually bad in their part of the country.

Ontarians complained at a higher rate than everyone else -- 65 per cent said it was unusually brutal. Those in Manitoba and Saskatchewan seemed the most accustomed to the harsh climes, with 75 per cent saying it was just another blustery winter like every other year.

In conducting the poll, 1,000 Canadians were surveyed between March 6 and March 9. The poll is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

With a report from CTV Montreal's Rob Lurie, CTV Atlantic and files from The Canadian Press