MORE wintry showers, and ice, could be on their way today – after a blanket of snow yesterday turned South Yorkshire white.
Plummeting temperatures predicted for today and the rest of the week are set to turn the ground icy. The mercury was due to fall to -2C overnight, getting colder throughout the week, dropping as low as -5C tomorrow and Thursday.
A MeteoGroup weather forecaster told The Star: “Into Tuesday there may be one or two showers that could fall as sleet and snow and there will be a north-easterly wind which will push some sleet and snow inland.
“There will be frost in the mornings with a minimum temperature of -5C tomorrow and Thursday.
“But it will be mainly dry and fine the rest of this week, with the odd wintry shower.”
Flakes started to drift down on Sheffield from around 9am yesterday, getting heavier around 11am, and fading away around 2pm – falling on top of a dusting of snow which settled on Sunday evening.
Geoff Kay, aged 80, of Western Road in Crookes, said: “The council has done really well gritting in our area. They were doing the main roads, and the salt gets passed on to the smaller ones.
“It seems they’ve been better prepared than other years. The snow hasn’t caused much of a problem round here.”
But Gwen Clegg, 82, of Wilson Street in Deepcar, said: “We’re housebound due to the snow. It’s bad down our road, and although there is a grit bin nobody seems to have put any out.
“Saying that, we had time to prepare. I went shopping at the weekend to make sure we have plenty of food.”
Sylvia Ludlam, 78, from Woodhouse, said: “I was going to go out to meet a friend at Cole’s, but we decided it wasn’t worth the risk. It would have been alright getting there but you don’t know if you’re going to get back.
“Here in Woodhouse it’s not as bad as some areas because we are very low down, but I wouldn’t attempt to go out in it, and I wouldn’t want my partner Bill driving the car in it.”
And Mick Daniels, 64, of Firth Park, questioned if enough gritters were on the streets.
“There was a good covering of snow here – I had trouble getting my car onto the drive, but I didn’t see one gritter out all morning.”
A Sheffield Council spokeswoman said Sheffield’s fleet of 20 gritters was back out on the road again last night from 7.30pm, treating priority routes.
A Veolia spokeswoman added some bin collections were affected.
“Due to the snow and ice on some roads and footpaths, a small number of black bins and blue bins and boxes were not emptied yesterday,” she said. “We advised households to put them out again for collection this morning.”
Sheffield Council cabinet member for environment, Coun Jack Scott, added: “This has been the first major snowfall since the gritting operation was taken over by Amey under the Streets Ahead contract and we are pleased to say there have been no major complaints.”
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