DONEGAL COUNTY council has defended its overnight gritting policy.
However James Boyle from the Council said this afternoon: “Further to your coverage this morning regarding gritters having been deployed last night when the temperatures were 6 Degrees at Mountain top the situation was as follows:
“I decided to have the roads gritted based on the predicted temperatures overnight. Donegal Co Co are supplied with specific forecasts for Donegal from Met Eireann including graphs which show predicted Road and Air temps at 5 specific locations around the county. Yesterdays forecast text is included below for your information. The text is supplemented by a series of graphs for 5 locations around the county . These graphs showed a predicted road temp below zero in three of the five locations for last night.
“On that basis it was decided to employ the gritters.
“It is interesting to note that Road Temps went below zero at two locations last night These were:
Killygordon : -0.2 Deg at 4 am
Griannan an Aileach : – 0.7 Deg at 4 10 am
“There can be big difference in Air Temps as shown in the car and Road temps. At times last night the air temp was 4 deg higher than the road temp. For this reason we have warned on a number of occasions that even though your car may be showing 4 Deg, ice may still be a problem on the road,” added Mr Boyle, a senior engineer.
