Slippery conditions in southern Manitoba led to a number of crashes in Winnipeg and surrounding communities on Friday morning.
The RCMP responded to 12 collisions between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. on the Perimeter Highway and various highways near the communities of Oakbank, Stonewall and Selkirk.
The crashes were largely attributed to slippery road surface conditions, RCMP said, blaming fluctuating temperatures and urging motorists to use caution.
Unseasonably warm weather began moving into the province early Friday, pushing out the frost that settled in after a cool day and evening on Thursday.
Normal temperatures in Winnipeg for this time of year are a high of 1 C and a low of -7 C. But over the next four or five days the temperatures are forecast to push close to, or into, double digits.
At 1:30 p.m. on Friday, mercury was at 10 C in Winnipeg and Environment Canada was calling for a high of 13 C.
One serious collision on Friday morning was a head-on between an SUV and pickup truck on Garven Road, about two kilometres east of Highway 59, just northeast of the city.
The driver and lone occupant of the pickup, a 51-year-old from Richer, Man., was taken to Concordia Hospital in Winnipeg.
The two occupants of the SUV, a 45-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman, had to be extricated from the vehicle before being taken to Concordia Hospital. Their condition was not released by police.
Shortly after that, a vehicle flipped on Main Street. There was no word on injuries or the number of occupants in that incident.
About the same time, two people were taken to hospital following a crash at Brookside Boulevard and Lucas Avenue in the city's Tyndall Park neighbourhood. The extent of their injuries was not revealed by police.
