The first significant cold weather of the season has arrived, with road surface temperatures due to dip below freezing throughout most of Norfolk tonight.

Norfolk County Council's fleet of gritting lorries are due to go out at 6pm to treat more than 2,000 miles of the county's roads.

More than a third of Norfolk's roads are on the council's 49 regular gritting routes, including all A and B-class roads and some C-class roads, and each route takes around three hours for a gritter lorry to treat.

People are also being asked to help each other by getting behind the Norfolk Winter campaign and sharing any information that may help keep people in the county happy, healthy and safe when the weather is cold, icy or snowy.

Martin Wilby, Chairman of Norfolk County Council's Environment, Development and Transport Committee, said: 'Gritting is a huge operation, more particularly so given the size and largely rural nature of our county. It involves hundreds of members of staff often working long and unsociable hours to make roads in Norfolk safer to use, and ultimately helping people to get to work and school and generally carry on with their lives.

'Last winter was relatively mild but the services of our gritting teams were still needed around 60 times between November and April. Hopefully this winter will continue this trend but we are well prepared to deal with wintry weather should it arise.'

The skies over Norfolk tonight should be largely clear, allowing for road surfaces to potentially freeze in any part of the county, and icy patches are possible where any surfaces have remained wet. A few showers are also possible tonight and there could be some sleet mixed in with rain.

The current forecast suggests the weekend won't be quite as cold, however a decision on whether the gritters are needed on Sunday will be taken on the day using the most up-to-date information.

Norfolk County Council currently has around 16,000 tonnes of salt stocked in the county. This will be replenished during the winter through a long-term contract the council has with its supplier Compass Minerals.