It would be an understatement to say that the roads and highways in and around Calgary are a mess, following Tuesday's record-breaking snowfall.
A warming centre, set up in Canmore for the hundreds of people stranded for up to 13 hours by bad weather on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary, was not accepting new motorists as of 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Police escorted stranded motorists to the warming centre at the Canmore high school early this morning, until RCMP were finally able to re-open the highway in both directions at 11:15 a.m.
Stranded motorists traded tales on a Reddit thread Wednesday morning.
"Was stuck from 11 a.m. yesterday until about 10 p.m.," wrote one user. "Luckily got out last night though, feeling horrible for the people still stuck."
Some of those stranded motorists were making the best of a bad (and cold) situation, however. Grammy-nominated trumpeter Jens Lindemann was captured on video serenading others with a rousing rendition of "O Canada."
Parts of Calgary reported snowfall of up to 40 centimetres in a 12-hour period with similar accumulation in the mountain parks and other areas of southern Alberta.
It's a record amount of snow for the Alberta city — the snowiest day in October in 104 years.
According to Environment Canada, Tuesday's snow obliterated the Oct. 2 snowfall record of 4.6 centimetres set in 1954. It also broke the one-day snowfall record for the entire month of October, which was 30 centimetres set in 1914.
The amount of unseasonably early snow caused havoc on Calgary streets, creating traffic snarls and completely closing some roads.
Calgary Transit's fleet was hit especially hard, with dozens of out-of-commission buses spotted around the city.
Jessica Kopitar captured approximately 14 buses off the road on Bow Trail Tuesday afternoon.
Others shared photos of buses stranded in the mess.
And, on Reddit, user Catbomb4 shared an aerial view of the chaos, taken from downtown's Plus-15 system.
In Calgary, 59 sanders and 22 graders hit the streets to start clearing the major roadways after the heavy snowfall.
An additional 74 operators and 40 pieces of equipment were also brought in from Edmonton, Red Deer, Okotoks and Medicine Hat.
Calgary police and Alberta RCMP are asking motorists avoid hitting the roads if at all possible, to give crews time to clean up the snow.
They are also reminding drivers to make sure their vehicles are cleared of snow.
With files from The Canadian Press