Highland Council winter road condition and school closure report for Friday 4 December
Maps of the Council’s gritting routes by priority and policy are available online at www.highland.gov.uk/gritting
The information provided is a summary of reports from operational staff and is intended to give a general indication of typical conditions in each area at a point in time. It is not intended to imply that any individual route is entirely snow and ice free and drivers must be aware that conditions can change rapidly and make their own assessment of conditions for travelling.
Road condition reports for Friday 4 December 2020 are as follows:
Lochalsh and Ross and Cromarty West
posted at 09:34 - Sub-zero road surface temperatures and air temps throughout the night with temperatures down to minus 5 across a lot of the routes. However, as forecasted the temperatures have risen a lot and rain has arrived on most routes. Some action is still ongoing along some of the longer routes.
Ross and Cromarty East
posted at 08:16 - Sleety showers over higher ground and heavy rain and wind on lower routes this morning. Treatment has taken place over higher ground, sheltered area and areas where water run off had frozen. Temperatures came up very quickly this morning. No issues reported overnight.
Caithness
posted at 08:30 - Positive road surface temperatures this morning so no action required
Sutherland
posted at 08:06 - Wind and rain on the East Coast with no hazards. Elsewhere rain, sleat and wet snow falling onto cold roads causing icy stretches. Some higher central routes affected by hard packed frozen slush and snow. All routes are being treated as necessary.
Skye and Lochalsh
posted at 07:50 - All Skye primary and secondary routes are being treated by priority this morning. Black ice is affecting some routes in North Skye. Driver caution advised.
Lochaber
posted at 08:42 - Low temperatures with wintry showers on all routes. All primary and secondary routes have been treated this morning.
Nairn
posted at 07:03 – There is 4cms of snow on high level routes with snow still falling so high routes are being treated with salt. Lower routes are wet due to rain so no treatment necessary.
Inverness
posted at 07:01 - Wet morning with some snow showers on higher routes. Started treatment on all routes this morning as road surface temperatures were below 0. No issues overnight.
Badenoch and Strathspey
posted at 06:58 – Ice and frost is covering all of area along with snow which is 5cms deep at north end of area and slightly less south end. Roads are being treated with salt
Highland has the longest road network of any council in Scotland and it is not possible to treat every road at the same time. A priority system is applied to treat the areas in greatest need first.
Trunk roads are gritted by BEAR Scotland (North West) for Transport Scotland.
School closures:
As at 10am today 2 Secondary schools (765 pupils), 11 Primary schools (1039 pupils) and Nurseries 8 (133 children) were closed due to bad weather.
The list is:
Abernethy Primary and Nursery
Alvie Primary
Aviemore Primary
Carrbridge Primary and Nursery
Daviot Primary
Deshar Primary and Nursery
Grantown Grammar School
Grantown Primary and Nursery
Kingussie High School
Kingussie Primary and Nursery
Strathdearn Primary and Nursery
Stratherrick Primary and Nursery
Cauldeen Primary and Cauldeen Nursery opened an hour later today due to water/heating/power issues.
The school closures page on the Council’s website at: https://www.highland.gov.uk/schoolclosures is updated from 7am and cleared each evening by 6pm.
Get alerts of closures on Highland Council’s Twitter and Facebook. Or phone 0800 564 2272 to get the latest pre-recorded message from head teachers regarding their school. Have the school's PIN ready when you call.
-ends-