Winter hit the southwest hard over the weekend and looks like it will continue doing so this week, and further into December.

With the sudden emergence of snow and temperatures well into the negatives, ice has layered over city streets.

Mitch Minken, General Manager of Infrastructure and Operations, explains the issue is being dealt with as swiftly as possible.

"We started Saturday afternoon as the snow started to fall. We've continued through Sunday with two sanding trucks, and three sanding trucks during the week.

We start at 6am every morning on the priority areas like the overpass and on the main arterial roads, then work our way around the city.

We just ask the public to be a little patient with us. We're trying our best and our guys are working hard spreading the sand. Just please slow down and take it a little bit easy, and hopefully be safe," he said.

Minken also explains the reason behind the city minimally mixing salt in with the sand.

"We only use sand with a very light salt addition to it, because all of our storm drains empty into the creek - we don't want to put a lot of salt into the creek.

Once we get to about -10, salt is very ineffective anyways.

These are tough conditions for us. The wind blowing snow across, it ices up the roads even more and blows the sand away.

Our only option is to continue working away, and continually try to apply sand to stay ahead of it," he said.

Despite the strong winds in Swift Current to start the week, the GM of Infrastructure and Operations with the City thinks the trucks will be caught up within a couple of days.