January 25, 2021 – Released images show falling snow is causing extremely difficult conditions on some Croatian roads, both motorways and state roads, with the mountainous regions of Lika and Gorski Kotar most affected

Any optimists living in Zagreb could be forgiven for thinking winter was over. Over a succession of two days last week they were basking in the relatively balmy daytime temperatures of 16 degrees. The sun shone brightly, the boots stayed indoors and lighter jackets were thrown on to visit the shops. Not everyone in Zagreb is an optimist, though. And those with an experience that is greater than their hope knew the reality of the situation; Croatia's winter can turn round at any moment to bite you in the ass.

Snow covering the Lika region

And that's exactly what happened this weekend, when falling snow produced treacherous driving conditions across a wide area of Croatia. On some motorways, a ban on trucks with trailers and tractors with semi-trailers is in place because of the continually falling snow. Another response to the falling snow has been to make winter vehicle equipment mandatory.

A thick layer of snow covers the road near Delnice at 19.14 on Sunday 24 January 2021 © HAK

While the Croatian capital was experiencing its warm spell, falling snow continued to descend on more mountainous regions of the country, Lika and Gorski Kotar in particular. And it is those that remain most affected by the treacherous driving conditions. Hrvatske Autoceste (Croatian Motorways) are responding to the continuing weather conditions. But, they released pictures of one motorway section near Delnice which, even after plowing, was 30 minutes later again covered by the falling snow.

A snowplow arrives at 19.15 to clear the snow © HAK

Thick falling snow and ice made it difficult to drive on the A6 Zagreb - Rijeka highway. The National Association of Drivers and Vehicle Owners (HAK) issued a series of warnings for the following routes: A1 Zagreb-Split-Ploče between the junctions of Bosiljevo II and Maslenica, A6 Rijeka-Zagreb between the junctions of Bosiljevo II and Kikovica, state road DC1 between Zagorje and Gračac and state road DC3 through Gorski Kotar between Zdihovo and Kikovica.

By 19.45 the road is in the same state as before the snowplow arrived, because of continually falling snow © HAK

HAK also reported that there is currently no passable road for trucks with trailers and tractors with semi-trailers from the direction of the continental interior towards Rijeka and Istria and Dalmatia and vice versa. The colder temperatures are expected to stick around for most of the early part of the week, although the skies may be clearer in some regions. Temperatures will rise again heading towards next weekend under an increasing cloud cover, but the chilly conditions might well bounce back towards the end of next weekend. Zagreb itself could even experience more snowfall at that time.

The Rasco company from Kalinovac, one of the biggest European producers of municipal equipment, started the upcoming winter season with a large delivery of street-maintenance vehicles, including snowplows, to some of the biggest countries in Europe.

Most people in Croatia wouldn't be able to point to Kalinovac on a map of Croatia confidently, but that's where the home of a significant Croatian manufacturing and exporting company is. In the last several weeks, 75 winter street maintenance vehicles were sent to Norway, and over a hundred to Ukraine, tportal writes. The vehicles involved are their salt spreaders and snowplows. Before the winter season, 21 salt spreaders were delivered to German municipal companies, and four snowplows went to the Munich International Airport. Those snowplows are custom-made, not the everyday plows that can be seen on the streets, as they're tailored to be used on airport runways. They're 6.5 meters wide, which is twice the width of the usual plows we see around the towns during winter.

Ivan Franičević, President of the board of the company, expressed his opinion that it's a big deal when Norwegian professionals used to spending eight months per year on snow and ice, or one of the biggest European airports decide to purchase such equipment from a Mediterranean country. Of course, Russian municipal street maintenance companies have also been their buyers for years. For the company, the trust of those partners proves that they've managed to position themselves on an extremely competitive market in the last three decades. They've done that with their quality and with a wide variety of products. That allows the buyers to get the complete solutions for the vehicles that maintain all types of traffic infrastructure, be it trucks, tractors, or multipurpose vehicles, in one place - in Kalinovac. Franičević added that in the markets of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia, and Hungary, they'd been the biggest provider of the equipment for road management for years.

Rasco produces more than 70 products, and they're exported into over 40 countries on five continents, and over 80 percent of their income comes from the export. They employ more than 400 people in their factories in Kalinovac near Đurđevac and Senta in Serbia and are continually growing. Several days ago, they started building the new, sixth production hall in Kalinovac. That's a part of the three-year-long investment cycle, in which they're investing more than 71 million kunas to increase their capacity, improve their energy efficiency, and develop new products such as the compact sweeper Lynx, which was recently presented.