RESIDENTS of Ryedale may been surprised this morning to find snow covering the district - despite it being spring.
After much anticipation from forecasters, the first snow of spring arrived this morning and brought with it disruption throughout parts of North Yorkshire.
North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said that the worst of the snow is now over, but warned that more is likely to be on the way over the weekend.
The service has urged drivers to continue to check routes before setting off due to a high risk of roads being closed across the county.
Despite this, however, BBC Weather, in association with MeteoGroup, has only forecast sleet showers for Ryedale, due to hit at 7pm tomorrow.
Forecasters have predicated a further drop in temperature to -4C tonight, rising to around 5C on Saturday, then 8C on Sunday.
Today, the areas worst affected were those to the west of the county, and areas in higher ground such as the North York Moors.
From the early hours of this morning North Yorkshire County Council’s (NYCC) weather cameras showed snowy scenes on the B1257 at Clay Bank, between Helmsley and Stokesley, along with the B1248 Wharram-le-Street and B1253 North Grimston, near Malton.
Large amounts of snow were also seen covering the highest points at Blakey Ridge early on.
Due to these extreme weather conditions, emergency services warned drivers to take care when travelling due to the high risk of disruption.
This was particularly the case in West Yorkshire where traffic was at a standstill on the M62 for most of the morning.
94 schools across North Yorkshire took the decision to close today, but in Ryedale it was only Welburn Hall School, near Kirkbymoorside, that told pupils to stay at home.
Power cut hits during the cold weather
In the village of Welburn a power cut struck in the morning affecting 10 properties during the cold weather.
At around 11am a spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said the power cut was “caused by an unexpected problem with the cables or equipment” that serve the area and was estimated to be fixed by 12.30pm.
Later in the day, however, the spokesperson said the power was still off and was not restored fully until 4.30pm using a generator.
They said: "Work is ongoing to trim nearby trees and install new overhead lines and when that is complete they will be reconnected to the main network."
The spokesperson could not give a time frame for how long this would take.
Disruption to recycling centres and refuse collections
Heavy snow fall overnight meant that several of NYCC's Household Waste Recycling Centres did not open this morning.
Of these sites included Thornton-le-Dale.
Streetscene also suspended refuse collection rounds this morning due to the snow in Rosedale, Thorgill, Rosedale East, Hartoft, Coppice Lane (Wrelton), Low Dalby, Bickley, and Cross Cliff.
A spokesperson for the service said teams will look to reattempt collection next week and asked residents to leave their bins out.
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