Cumbria’s gritters have been out in force as the temperature dropped in the county.
Westmorland and Furness Council said: “The tireless work of our fleet of gritters and snowploughs overnight means many main routes in Westmorland and Furness are passable with care today, but we are advising drivers to still be very careful on the road network as conditions remain treacherous in a number of areas, especially minor roads leading to the treated main routes.
“Unless your journey is really necessary please consider staying off the road network to avoid the risk of becoming stuck or blocking essential routes.
“Our ploughs and gritters are currently out on the network working hard to clear any priority routes that may still have amounts of snow coverage and we are asking drivers to be patient and consider whether your journey is really necessary at this time until the roads are clear.
“Drivers are also warned that even after being treated and appearing to be clear, roads can remain dangerously icy, especially if freezing rain falls as is being forecast for some areas later today.”
Its full fleet of 20 gritters and snowploughs has been working continuously through the weekend to treat the 840 miles of priority one and two routes in Westmorland and Furness before and during the heavy overnight snowfalls.
Here’s the map of where Westmorland & Furness is scheduled to grit today:
Cumberland council’s gritting routes for today are as follows:
The blue roads are primary and secondary routes, the orange route is the Carlisle Northern Development Route, a network to take traffic away from Carlisle city centre and improve transport links between West Cumbria, Scotland and the North East of England.
How are the roads chosen for gritting?
How does gritting work?
The 6mm crushed rock salt that spread from the back of gritters stops water from freezing until temperatures are between minus six degrees Celsius and minus eight degrees Celsius.
The salt works best when it goes into a solution, so relies on the tyres of vehicles passing over the top of it to crush the salt onto the road to keep it effective.
This means that if roads become blocked by stranded vehicles and no tyres are passing over the treated road, the salt can be less effective, especially if there are large accumulations of snow falling over a relatively short period when the roads are quieter, as was the case overnight with much of the snow falling in the early hours.
