TEMPERATURES in York could drop as low as -13C tonight, as the big freeze continues.

Gritting teams are bracing themselves for another busy night, with forecasters predicting a minimum air temperature of -13C and road surface temperatures of -12C.

Snow showers are expected to die away tonight, but a City of York Council spokeswoman said: "It will be very cold."

The council says it has cleared all its designated priority routes and at today's Winter Control Group meeting, it was decided to divert resources to the secondary routes from lunchtime until 3.30pm, before returning to the priority routes.

But the spokeswoman said: "Conditions on the secondary routes will not change much today.

"The snow is hard packed, so ploughing will not be as effective as the main routes, and the salt will require plenty of traffic to make it react."

The council is also diverting mechanical resources to the Park&Rides sites and surface level car parks.

JCBs and gritters are removing and treating wherever possible and an additional small tractor-mounted snowplough is clearing snow and slush from the footpaths, along with the existing footpath ploughs and brushes.

The manual crews will be working until 4pm today and will return at 5.30am tomorrow.