Code red for black ice in northern Netherlands; NL Alert to stay off the roads
Black ice is causing extremely treacherous conditions in the northern parts of the Netherlands. The KNMI issued a code red weather alarm for Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe. An NL Alert went out to locals, urging them to stay off the roads and stay home as much as possible. There have been many accidents already. No trains or buses are running in the provinces until at least 11:00. And at least two hospitals have canceled all appointments.
Icy roads are also impacting some other provinces in the northern half of the country. The KNMI issued code orange for Flevoland, Utrecht, and the Wadden Islands, and code yellow for Noord-Holland.
The code red weather alarm in the northern provinces will remain in effect until at least 10:00 a.m., after which a code yellow will take its place. The KNMI expects to de-escalate the code orange warning to code yellow by around 8:00 a.m., and for the slippery conditions to clear up by the afternoon.
The road users’ association ANWB reported that “a lot of accidents” are happening in the north. The extremely slippery conditions are also making it difficult for emergency services to reach accident sites, Bianka Damink of the association told NOS.
After several accidents, the A28 towards Groningen is closed completely between Vries and Eelde due to the black ice. There were also many accidents on the A6 in Friesland, where even a gritter veered off the road. And on the roads where traffic is still possible, cars are moving very slowly.
“Black ice is the most extreme form of slippery road conditions,” Miranda Mulder of the infrastructure agency Rijkswaterstaat told the broadcaster. “This is making things difficult for road users in the Northern Netherlands. We advise against driving there.”
ProRail reported that no trains will run in the three northern provinces until at least 11:00 a.m. Qbuzz is also not running its bus services in Drenthe, Friesland, and Groningen until at least 10:30 a.m.
The Nij Smellinghe Hospital in Drachten, Friesland, and the Martini Hospital in Groningen have canceled all appointments and surgeries until at least noon. The Martinin Hospital urged people not to come to the clinic, ANP reported.
The locations of the Noord-Nederland District court in Groningen, Assen, and Leeuwarden will also be closed until at least 10:00 a.m. Only emergency hearings will be held on site. “We will inform you as soon as possible about the consequences of your hearing. Where possible, hearings will be converted to online hearings,” the court said.
The KNMI expects the freezing rain and icy conditions in the north to persist until the late morning. The rest of the country will be dry with sunny spells. By the afternoon, the north will also be dry, but the cloud cover will remain. It will be quite sunny elsewhere. Maximums will range between freezing in the northeast and around 10 degrees in the southwest.
No precipitation is expected overnight, so the roads should be safer on Thursday morning.
