Blown snow, strong wind lead to accidents, bad condition of the highway

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Periods of snow ended around noon Wednesday after high winds, sub-zero temperatures and blowing snow created dangerous driving conditions on Calgary and suburban highways.

RCMP said many roads and highways in southern Alberta were covered in ice or snow, and advised people to avoid travel if possible.

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In Airdrie, northbound Highway 2 is fully open after being closed earlier as emergency crews attend to several collisions. Travel is not recommended, but the highway will remain open north of Airdrie.

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There are also poor driving conditions northbound between Innisfail and Bowden, with many vehicles off the highway.

The City of Calgary's traffic department listed several crashes — most of them on sections of Stoney Trail — that required lane closures as early as 9 a.m. Most were resolved by noon.

Between midnight and 11:30 a.m., there were 51 collisions and seven collisions, according to the Calgary Police Service.

Street sweeping has been postponed

The city has postponed scheduled residential street sweeping in the Citadel community (South Side) due to cold weather and snow and ice accumulation.

Accumulations of snow and ice can cause problems for our sweeping equipment, the press release said.

The deadline for cleaning unfinished streets will be moved to June; all other cleaning will proceed as scheduled.

City-wide cleanup is expected to continue as planned on Thursday.

The wind speed was 60 km/h.

Canada's latest forecast shows that conditions should improve for daytime travel, with wind gusts dropping to 40 km/h. Temperatures will be cool, although an unseasonably high temperature of just 2 degrees is expected.

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Brian Proctor, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said a low-pressure system was moving across the prairies, bringing significant winds to Manitoba.

“Right now the gust at the airport is 57 km/h. and we see a lot of gusts at 60 km/h. Spread across much of southern Alberta,” he said. “We're also seeing a lot of clustering and breakout activity.”

Proctor said snow and rain activity will decrease in Calgary on Wednesday, followed by cloudy skies overnight.

“Temperatures will be around freezing or slightly above freezing during the day,” he said. “We won't really see these temperatures start to normalize until the end of the weekend.

Warmer temperatures will return on Sunday, with highs of 12 to 15 degrees by Tuesday, Proctor said.

“It looks like it's going to be warmer and drier – I wouldn't expect us to see very high temperatures, but I think we're going to be above seasonal.”

The Alberta Motor Association said towing and winch requests at 10:30 a.m. were slightly higher than normal, and if wait times seem longer than usual, it means AMA trucks are facing treacherous conditions as other drivers are seeing.

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