WINTER’S FIRST SNOW HITS REGION
PARTS of South Wales woke up to snow and travel problems yesterday as forecasters warned of further downpours.
Snow fell across a wide area, from Carmarthenshire in the west to Blaenau Gwent and Monmouthshire in the east.
The Met Office issued a snow warning, which ended in the morning, and there was a yellow warning for rain until 11.45pm last night. That covered a large chunk of Mid Wales and parts of the south.
Higher routes through Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent experienced a large amount of snow, which caused some mountain routes to shut overnight on Wednesday.
Rhondda Cynon Taf council reported that its mountain roads were open yesterday morning and passable with care. Some commuters warned of diffcult driving conditions and blizzards.
One reader told us: “Roads are terrible in Rhigos. No sign of grit or salt on them. The main Rhigos Road is bad. The snow that fell last night has frozen and it’s been snowing since about 6am. No buses are running up here at the moment.”
There were hazardous driving conditions on the A465 Heads of the Valleys road after a large amount of snow settled on the carriageway.
There were also reports of lorries stuck near Storey Arms, but the area became busy later as people made the most of the snow on Pen y Fan. No schools were reported closed. There were also poor driving conditions on the M4 between Cardiff and Newport, which were not helped by a five-vehicle accident on the A48.
The forecast for today for Cardiff is cloudy changing to sunny intervals by late morning. Temperatures will be between 7°C and 9°C.
The temperature will remain the same for tomorrow and Sunday, with more cloudy conditions.