Avoid non-essential travel due to snowy, ice-covered roads: southern Alberta RCMP

Drivers east of Calgary are being advised to hunker down and stay put unless they absolutely need to drive somewhere, as RCMP say roads are in terrible condition.

Late Thursday afternoon, RCMP said they were receiving a received a high volume of collision-related calls for service in the Brooks, Alta., area due to weather and road conditions.

One such collision occurred in the Scandia area, where RCMP shut down Highway 36 in both directions due to a collision. A detour was available via Highway 530 to Range Road 154 from south or vice versa from the north.

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Because of the poor conditions, police asked drivers to avoid all non-essential travel in the Brooks area of southeastern Alberta.

Those who did need to travel were asked to please drive to the conditions of the road and be aware that a mixture of ice, snow and sleet has made a lot of the highways, as well as most other roads, very slippery.

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The weather in Brooks on Thursday called for temperatures in the minus 20s, snow and winds of 20 km/h, gusting to 40 km/h, becoming light early in the evening.

The wind chill was expected to be -30 in the evening and -25 overnight.

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