Snow comes to Sheffield

Good afternoon readers — and welcome to our Monday briefing.

We hope you’ve all had a great Christmas and New Year and are looking forward to 2025. It won’t have escaped your attention that Sheffield is having a snow day. The Tribune team were expecting to be in our office at Leah’s Yard but like many of you, we are currently scattered across Sheffield. Dan at Park Hill only got a few inches of snow but Daniel who lives in Crookes is currently fighting his way out with a shovel. Lots of people were out enjoying the snow yesterday but today dozens of schools are closed on the first day of the new term, while the snow is playing havoc with buses and trams, and waste collections have been hit as well. Our big story has all the latest plus a detailed forecast for the week ahead.

As well as that, we have some big news about e-bike couriers in the city centre, a small but perfectly formed home of the week near Sheffield Botanical Gardens, and Swan Lake comes to the Lyceum.

Sheffield in 2025: At the weekend, over 200 of you made your predictions for Sheffield this year. It was great to see most readers (62%) backing a pub renaissance, but only a quarter of you thought the miniature steel man would be built this year… We're really sorry the link wasn't working at first — if you'd still like to enter, click here.

Editor’s note: Before Christmas, we asked you to make our dreams come true by getting us to 2,500 paying members before New Year’s Eve — and you delivered. Just a few hours before 2025 began, we passed our latest major milestone just three and a half years after launching our subscription service. It’s a huge achievement and yet more proof that people will fork out for local news if you give them something worth paying for. The support you have shown to The Tribune since we launched in 2021 has been simply astonishing. Thank you.

We’ll soon be sending out a survey to find out what you want from us in 2025, and we will also be contacting some of you to have more in-depth chats about what you like about The Tribune and what you think we could do better. Please get your thinking caps on about what stories you want us to cover this year.

As Dan wrote in his end-of-year message, our big goal for this year is to employ another journalist — to fill our currently empty fourth desk. Our next major goal is to reach 3,000 members to make that sustainable; get on board by hitting the button below.

Take your business or career to the next level in 2025

From today's sponsor: In an unpredictable world, it's more important than ever to be "future proof". That's the focus of this year's Better Business Summit, which brings together successful and sustainable companies in Manchester every year, and is taking place from the 15th-17th January. Join the likes of Patagonia, TicketTailor and Toms for inspiring talks, unmissable networking opportunities and new growth strategies for your business. It's the event for those wanting to do good business in the North, and your chance to meet the experts who can unlock your challenges or help you take the next step in your career.

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The big picture: He’s behind you 🎭

The Crookes Community Panto returned this weekend with a rollicking production of Aladdin packed with big songs, chorus lines, subverted gender stereotypes, innuendo and downright silliness. Now in its fourth year, the much-loved panto brings together people of all ages and backgrounds to raise money for the Children's Hospital Charity.

The big story: Snow comes to Sheffield ❄️

Top line: As expected, Sheffield was hit by a deluge of snow overnight on Saturday into Sunday morning. The snow looked like great fun on Sunday. But as people return to work this morning and schools reopen after the Christmas holidays, it’s been causing headaches.

Snow day: Thousands of people were out on Sunday, with most of the best sledging conditions at Meersbrook Park and the Bolehills in Crookes. At Meersbrook Park hundreds of thrillseekers were bombing down the Devil’s Arse, the slope locals claim is the best sledging in the city. Elsewhere, the city’s fleet of gritters was out and about, following a recent renaming in homage to local legends (Jessica Ennis Chill, Snow Root, Sleet McKee…) plus the excellent “Tinsley Cooling Plougher”.

White hell: Many schools in Sheffield have been forced to close, bus and tram services have been stopped and waste collections have also been affected. Below is all the latest:

• Schools: Dozens of schools have been forced to close for the first day of term. The Star has a fairly comprehensive list of the schools affected here. Mercia School in Millhouses originally said they were planning to open at 10am but later announced they were to close for the day. But Carterknowle Junior School and its sister school, Holt House Infants managed to open by 11am. 
• Transport: The main road routes in the city are all currently open but few side streets will have been gritted. All bus services in the city were suspended first thing this morning, but some are now operating again. For the latest see the First Bus South Yorkshire or Stagecoach Yorkshire websites. On Supertram, the yellow, blue and purple routes are all operating their full routes but not following the timetable. The tram train is suspended until further notice. Waste collection company Veolia have also said that their waste and recycling collections will be “limited” today due to snow and ice creating “difficult conditions” on roads and footpaths.
• Flooding: As the snow melts flood alerts have also been issued for the Lower Don Valley in Sheffield (including parts of the city centre, Kelham Island, Brightside and Meadowhall), and localised flooding has taken place on the A61 in Woodseats where one of the streams running through Graves Park has burst its banks.

The data: It might be causing a few problems, but in comparison to previous snow storms, this one isn’t particularly significant. In the winter of 2010-2011, Sheffield was hit with five feet of snow, while in 1947, the worst winter on record, snow drifts several meters high cut off large parts of the city including Lodge Moor, pictured below. 

And data supports the notion that we are seeing fewer cold days. Between 1981 and 2000 Sheffield had a median of 54 frost days. But between 2001 and 2020 that had fallen to 41. If we manage to keep global warming to 1.5C, which looks increasingly unlikely, the Met Office expects this to fall to 34. If we don’t, snow days could become a thing of the past.

The forecast: Some of the snow is melting, but temperatures aren’t forecast to rise much above zero for most of the next week, meaning ice could stick around for a few days yet. For a detailed look at the weather for the week ahead, see Steel City Skies’ forecast below.

Monday 🌨 Snow easing through the morning, after further accumulations. Brighter later with the odd shower. Cold with highs of 2°C and a sub-zero, icy night.

Tuesday ⛅❄ Sunshine and wintry showers. High ground could see slight accumulations where showers line up. Cold westerly winds and a hard frost early and late. Highs of 2°C.

Wednesday ⛅ Very cold but mainly dry and bright with lighter winds. Sunny spells; again a hard frost early and late with overnight temps well below freezing. Highs of 1°C.

Thursday ⛅ Staying mostly dry and fine with good spells of wintry sunshine. Odd flurry over the hills. Cold west-northwest winds with highs of 2°C. Very cold night following.

Friday 🌥 Hard frost to start, then bright with increasing cloud possible from the west later. Remaining cold, with a chance of a few wintry showers later. Highs of 2°C.

Outlook: High pressure is likely to kill off any risk of unsettled conditions and milder incursions. A mainly dry, bland but cold weekend is currently favoured.

To see the full forecast and keep up to date with any changes to the outlook, follow Steel City Skies on Facebook.

Mini-briefing 🗞️

🚲 E-bikes gone: Police in Sheffield seized 50 illegal e-bikes in the city centre two days before New Year’s Eve. In the last few years, e-bike couriers have become a common sight, but most of the bikes they use are in fact too powerful to be used without a licence. Many people obviously appreciate the service they provide or there wouldn’t be so many of them, but some worry about the anti-social behaviour they cause by riding on the pavements and how much danger the riders put themselves in. Dan's piece from 2023 about the bike couriers of Sheffield is here.

🐕 Bully beef: A protest about the shooting dead of an XL Bully dog in Hillsborough last month took place on Saturday outside Snig Hill police station. The dog, named Ghost, was killed by officers following reports that it had bitten a woman. The protesters claimed that there is no evidence that anyone was bitten that day, and have called on South Yorkshire Police to stop using firearms officers to shoot dogs in the region. Police accept the woman was not injured in the incident but say the dog was “humanely dispatched” due to the “significant risk posed”. Our piece from last year about XL Bullies and the legislation that outlaws them is here.

🎸 Let’s all meet up in the year…2025: The rumours that swirled last year that Pulp were making a new album look to have been confirmed by the news that they have signed to Rough Trade records. The band split up in 2002 and have reformed a few times since 2011 for live appearances, but this would be the first new music since We Love Life in 2001. People old enough to remember bands like Pulp and Oasis first time round (like, for example, Dan) are often a bit wary of bands trying to recreate the glory days, but Pulp’s shows in Sheffield in 2023 were so good that even he’s looking forward to hearing their new stuff.

Home of the week 🏡

Just a few minutes’ walk from Sheffield Botanical Gardens, this beautifully-presented three bedroomed mid-terrace in Broomhall is also blessed with a basement utility room and a low-maintenance garden with raised beds and a shed. It is on the market for £350,000.

Tribune tips: If you want to tell us about a story or give us some information, please get in touch with us by emailing editor@sheffieldtribune.co.uk. We are happy to speak to people off the record, and we guarantee we will treat your information with confidence and sensitivity.

Things to do 📆

Philosophy 🧠 Like to think with a drink? Then Philosophy in Pubs could be for you. Starting from a simple stimulus, you'll talk with others to come up with a question for discussion and then use your (possibly slightly lubricated) mind to philosophise about it. This month’s session will take place at the Fat Cat in Kelham Island on Tuesday at 7.30pm. It is completely free and all are welcome. To read about Dan’s experience from 2022, click here.

Theatre 🎭 Starting on Tuesday at the Lyceum is one of the greatest ballets of them all. A timeless tale of love and betrayal, Swan Lake accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s mesmerising score is one of the true delights of classical ballet. Prince Siegfried falls madly in love with Odette, Queen of the Swans, only to be tricked into betraying her by the wicked von Rothbart and his daughter Odile. Tickets are priced £15-£46.50 and the show runs until Saturday.

Music 🎸 Jazz at the Lescar returns on Wednesday with cutting-edge “jazztronica” project Unfurl. Drawing together a wide range of musical textures — from crunching lo-fi beats, bristling synth basslines, downtempo and drum and bass beats — the project explores a highly distinctive, cinematic sound world. Tickets are priced £10 (£7 for students) and doors open at 8pm (music starts at 8.30pm). If you want to check them out first, click here.