WHILE much of the region escaped the worst of the weekend’s severe weather, on high ground snowfall combined with high winds to cause traffic and power mayhem.

One of the region’s busiest roads, the A66 trans-Pennine route between Bowes, County Durham, and Brough, in Cumbria, was closed from Friday until late afternoon today (Sunday, March 24).

Durham police had reports of stranded motorists particularly in Upper Weardale and Teesdale and many roads in North Yorkshire were shut or only passable with care.

With temperatures unlikely to get much above freezing all week, the North East and North Yorkshire will continue to feel bitterly cold and experience hazardous driving conditions.

Helen Roberts, a Met Office forecaster, said: “One of the main problems was quite a lot of dry snow combined with really strong easterly winds lifting and blowing it around a lot.

“For the next few days snow showers are likely to be fairly light and scattered.

“But as snow at low levels starts melting during the day then refreezing at night there is a high risk of icy conditions.”

For one family in the remote North Pennines the bad weather is a burden for some but fun to others.

While sisters Darcy and Millie Crowther, aged five and eight, enjoyed building snow bunnies on the hills above Frosterley, in Weardale, parents Lee and Helen have faced a gruelling daily journey to work.

For two weeks practice nurse Mrs Crowther has walked the half mile track from their home, at Intake Farm, to the road to get a lift to and from work in Stanhope and Mr Crowther, an electrical contractor, hiked the route laden with tools when his 4x4 could not get through.

Mrs Crowther said: “It has been appalling and the drifts so extreme.

“It is like a different world on the hills, when you get to the bottom of the bank there can be hardly anything but up at the farm it is unreal.

“For the girls and their cousins, Harrison and Ruby, it is great fun, a big adventure.”

Mrs Crowther’s brother-in-law, David Collingwood, is busy lambing at the farm and has moved livestock inside to keep the new arrivals warm.

She added: “You just have to get on with it, up here this is spring.”