Slushy streets in the weekend forecast as city warns drivers to be cautious

Just call it the big thaw.

In the aftermath of record amounts of December snow, Mother Nature is turning up the heat while snow-weary Calgarians struggle to navigate clogged and impassable residential streets.

The temperature is expected to climb to 14 degrees on Saturday in what promises to be a massive melt that will transform slick streets into mounds of soupy slush.

The weather warning comes as the citys 311 municipal line is already inundated with record complaints about snow and ice removal.

A team of contractors and city workers will be out again Saturday as part of a four week plan to clear the snow in 200 communities. We continue to move forward with our snow action plan, said Carissa Vescio, a spokeswoman for the citys transportation department.

The big thaw will create soft, wet, slushy conditions. We ask Calgarians to continue to drive cautiously and top up their windshield washer fluid.

Saturdays mid-January melt highlights a bizarre irony in the city. While bars along the Red Mile serve beer and appetizers to patrons on patios and skiers trade tuques for T-shirts at Canada Olympic Park, suburban residents continue to seethe over icy sidewalks and vehicles trapped on snow-packed roads.

Douglas Century, a New York-based journalist in Calgary this week to visit family, finds the situation astonishing.

He said the wheels of both an ambulance and a fire truck became stuck in heavy snow on an impassable street in his parents southwest neighbourhood of Chinook Park.

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Slushy streets in the weekend forecast as city warns drivers to be cautious