Kirklees Council has revealed it has used 2,000 tonnes more grit so far this year than the whole of last winter.

Black ice causing real problems yesterday morning with four gritters crashing within just a few hours.

Kirklees Council said on its Winter Twitter feed: “We’ve used around 2,000 tonnes more grit so far this season than we did in the whole of the last winter season - 1,000 tonnes was used in 24 hours on Tuesday.

Snow falling on Bradley Road at Bradley

“The good news is it’s supposed to get warmer early this week (according to the forecast). Don’t worry we still have some grit left.”

They revealed that the grit spreaders on the back of the gritter are calibrated to make sure just the right amount is being spread. This is done at the beginning of winter and is being checked again partway through winter.

And on Saturday morning the Twitter feed said of the gritters: “In conditions like this four of them had minor crashes. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that the four gritter drivers are all OK. We have fitters working on repairing the vehicles and we have enough capacity so we can still put out a full fleet.”

The gritter crews have had a hectic weekend and when it started to snow this (Sun) morning it mobilised its entire 31-strong fleet.

The snow caused problems around Huddersfield yesterday with Meltham and other villages hit by blizzards while in Birdsedge one man was spotted skiing.

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No trains were running in and out of Huddersfield railway station all weekend while signalling improvement work was being carried out and the snow was so bad the replacement buses were unable to call in at Berry Brow, Honley, Brockholes, Stocksmoor and Shepley stations.

No-one was hurt when a car spun off the M62 close to Junction 25 at Brighouse yesterday lunchtime.

Outlying areas such as Saddleworth Moor and Penistone were both badly affected by snow.

Huddersfield weather expert Paul Stevens said the snow will disappear to be replaced by milder and wet weather early this week but should become colder by midweek with sunshine and wintry showers.