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Waves pound the shore in Peggy's Cove, N.S. on Sunday, Dec.30, 2012 as a winter storm passed through the region. Rain, snow and high winds disrupted transportation and knocked out power in some communities.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press

Nature is about to take a breather and leave the Maritimes alone for at least the next week after back-to-back storms left the three provinces cleaning up from snow, wind damage and ice.

Environment Canada's senior climatologist David Phillips called Sunday's storm in the three eastern provinces "nasty" as it closely followed one just a few days before.

Flights in and out of Halifax, Saint John and Moncton Sunday were either cancelled or delayed because of poor conditions.

Roads were icy and tricky because of high winds and blowing snow and there were reports of power outages across the region. On Monday morning, Maritimers awoke to some flight delays and delays of ferry services. But, generally, life is getting back to normal.

The climatologist, meanwhile, is predicting calm over New Year's.

He told The Globe that there is not going to be a lot of wind or rain but just some "Canadian air that is going to occupy the area."

The next seven days will have abundance of sunshine and very cold temperatures. Mr. Phillips said they will be the coldest of the season so far.

For example, in Moncton this week the thermometer will drop to -11 C. Normally, he said, temperatures would be around -3 C for this time of year. Toronto and Montreal will also experience freezing temperatures.

"We just haven't seen those at all," Mr. Phillips said about the cold temperatures.

In fact, he said that people in the East had been wondering when winter was going to come as they watched westerners deal with the cold and the snow in the weeks before Christmas.

"What we're going to see is an end of American air that can often bring us the misery, the rain, the snow," he said. "… these California storms are bringing us the look of winter, now we are going to see the feel of winter this week when we see this cold and all of this sunshine … .

"You've got to bundle up," he warned.

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