Snowfall creates challenging driving conditions for many Calgary drivers with up to 25cm on the way

Calgarians awoke to winter conditions after an overnight dump of snow in which temperatures dropped well below seasonal norms.

Freezing rain turned to snow Monday night leaving roads coated with a layer of ice and snow.

The Calgary Police Service said 273 collisions had been reported by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, 16 of which involved injuries. 

The Blue Line of the LRT is running on only one line through the west toward 69 Street S.W after a CTrain lost power just under Crowchild Trail.

In a tweet Tuesday morning YYC Transportation attribute the outage to the extreme weather.

City workers and Enmax crews spent the morning working to get the train back in operation.

As a result Bow Trail, a critical commuter corridor in the city's southwest, was reduced to two lanes, further adding to commuters' woes.

Traffic city wide was affected by the dump of snow, with most roads heading into the downtown core backed up and moving slowly

The City of Calgary says it has 55 sanding trucks, as well as additional contracted crews, on the road 24 hours a day working to keep traffic moving.

"We give ourselves 18 hours to get those priority one roads cleared. Once we've had them cleared and move into the priority two roads, that's a lot of the larger community roads, the bus routes, and we want them cleared within the next 18 hours," said Chris Hewitt, mobile operations manager with the City of Calgary.

"Once we get past that, that's when we move into residential area. As we move into doing some of the accessibility work, removing any wind-rows that may have formed around crosswalks or bus stops."

The city says heading into this storm it had $31 million of its $54 million budget for snow clearing left for the 2023 fiscal year.

At 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Alberta Motor Association reported the wait time for a tow was up to 19 hours, and the wait for a battery boost was eight hours.

HIGHWAYS IN POOR CONDITION

Meanwhile, outside Calgary, conditions aren't much better.

511 Alberta is reporting several trouble spots on area highways, including east of Calgary.

The provincial agency says travel is not recommended between Strathmore and Bassano in particular.

Areas north of Calgary were also treacherous, with several crashes reported on the QEII, with one of those fatal.

Earlier on Monday, a school bus driving north of Didsbury, Alta., also crashed, injuring five students and one teacher on board.

MORE SNOW ON THE WAY

Many Calgarians may already be crying 'uncle' with the rapid shift in weather near the end of the month, but Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) predicts that even more may come through the day.

The agency says up to 25 centimetres of snow is expected in some regions of the province, including Calgary, by the end of Tuesday.

It advises drivers to take precautions, especially in areas of poor visibility.

(With files from the Canadian Press)