The roads will be a bit icy over the weekend, but not quite as bad as in this archive picture. Photo: Pontus Stenberg/TT

Swedish emergency services are warning motorists to take extra special care over the weekend, as a cold snap brought black ice to roads across the country, causing a string of accidents. “We have had five traffic accidents already this morning,” Anders Hägglund, head of the rescue services in Södertörn outside Stockholm, told the Expressen newspaper. “When its slippery and you go into a skid, thats what can happen.”

A truck slid off the E4 motorway at the Järna junction south of Stockholm early on Saturday morning and ended up stuck between two exits. Traffic on the road then came to a total stop for several hours.

Another accident took place in the Stockholm area of Solvalla in the early afternoon, and two more accidents north of the city near Norrtälje.

Hägglund advised motorists not to go out without winter tyres, and warned others to drive slowly and keep their distance from the cars in front.

Lasse Rydqvist, a meteorologist at the weather forecasting company StormGeo, said that a high pressure system in the west of Sweden was bringing cold weather.

“Its going to continue to be colder than normal, two to four degrees colder than what you might expect for late November,” he told Expressen.

“By midday the temperatures going to be around zero, nudging into the positive in some parts of the south. In the north, we can expect between zero and -5C,” he said.

He said that as meteorological winter spread to central and southern Sweden it was time to put winter tyres on cars.

“Its pretty frozen out there in the countryside and on the roads and it looks like the same situation on Saturday night,” he said.

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