Snow-clearing crews in for long week as second weather system moves toward Ottawa

No rest this week for snowplow drivers and other road-clearing crews, who will soon have to deal with a second, smaller blast of winter, just hours after the previous one.

Ottawa's city road crews were still clearing residential side streets, Tuesday morning, from Monday's record snowfall of more than 48 centimetres.

A parking ban is in place across Ottawa until 7 p.m.

“[Clearing] residential streets will be ongoing… into the afternoon and evening,” said Bryden Denyes, the City of Ottawa's area manager of urban roads. “Our big challenge right now is sidewalks, so residents will see windrows blocking corners in areas as we plow residential streets, but we have crews deployed to start clearing those corners.”

Those crews may be in for a long week, however. Environment Canada predicts up to 10 centimetres of snow, Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. While not major, it's expected to begin falling around the time crews finish clearing the last of the previous dump.

“The plan will be to continue plowing and applying material as the storm comes in,” Denyes told CityNews Ottawa. “So, we'll just continue treating and then we're going to be looking toward snow removal operations, in certain key areas, coming up for the weekend.”

Listen to Denyes' full conversation with Rob Snow: