Calgary snowfall leads to postponing of some street sweeping

The City of Calgary announced Tuesday that some residential street sweeping operations have been postponed thanks to a dump of spring snow.

The snow began falling on Monday evening and is expected to continue intermittently Tuesday and potentially into Wednesday morning.

"Accumulating snow and ice can create challenges for our sweeping equipment," explained the city in a news release.

As such, sweeping operations in the communities of Citadel (West), Legacyand Coventry Hills (North and East portions) that were originally scheduled for Tuesday have been postponed.

Instead, their street sweeping will be done in June.

Scheduled sweeping continues Tuesday in the communities of Rosedale, Crescent Heights, Castleridge (south), Westwinds, Capitol Hill, Rosemont, Southview, Woodbine, Meadowlark Park, Mayfairand Belaire.

Citywide sweeping is expected to continue, as scheduled, on Wednesday.

For more information on street sweeping you can visit the City of Calgary's website.

Spring snow brings welcome moisture

Tuesday's snowfall forced golf courses to close, but it also gave a boost to hopes for a good start to the growing season.

According to provincial moisture tracking data, many of the hard-hit areas of southern and central Alberta have benefitted from the recent snowfalls.

"For the the dryland producers, we're not bad, we've got a little bit of moisture, that's going to get us through seeding," said Dustin Farr, an agriculture technology instructor at Olds College.

The mountains are still sitting at low snowpack levels and the current improved soil moisture picture does not mean the drought of recent years is over.

"You get into southern Alberta, where we have irrigation and that's where we're going to really see we're going to see some battles over water this year," Farr says.

In Calgary, the needs of golf courses vary, but Fox Hollow says the greens wintered well and the current snowfall is giving them a chance to catch their breath ahead of the busy season.

"When your systems are shut down for a whole winter there are some hiccups when you start them back up again," says Greg Griffith, head pro at Fox Hollow. "This gives us a chance to get caught back up again."