Weather News

Ice forces closure of New England Highway

Freezing weather conditions have closed the main inland highway linking Sydney and Brisbane.

The New England Highway in northern New South Wales was closed between Armidale and Glen Innes about 3:00am (AEST) because of ice.

Dave Wright from the Transport Management Centre says the highway will not re-open until the ice melts, but diversions are in place.

"The actual severity area is around the Black Mountain area. If you want to get from Armidale, for example, to Glen Innes or Glen Innes to Armidale you need to divert via Thunderbolts Way and the Gwydir Highway," he said.

"At this stage we don't even have a forecast of when it's going to re-open. Unfortunately in the early parts of the morning that's when it gets really, really cold, so it's going to take a fair bit of sun to melt all that ice on the road."


- ABC

© ABC 2012

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