Otago residents woke yesterday to black ice and compacted snow, which made roads and footpaths treacherous.
Temperatures around zero and cloud cover until noon ensured icy streets on Dunedin hill suburbs remained quiet for much of the day.
Motorists were able to access main city roads after grit and CMA were spread, but many other hill suburb streets were dangerously slippery.
Many residents left their cars at home and walked to work, but were forced on to the streets as footpaths were perilous.
More cars were abandoned as drivers chose to walk.
Compacted snow caused problems in York Pl, City Rise, with people slipping over. Cars were stranded along its length.
City Heights Early Childhood Centre owner Ann Barrowclough said about half the usual number of children arrived at the York Pl centre yesterday morning.
The centre opened because many parents needed to go to work.
"At least we have got food," she said as she watched the food delivery truck, which had been stranded on ice while making a delivery to the centre, be towed backwards up the street by a 4WD utility vehicle equipped with chains.
Nine people turned up at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department with ice-related injuries on Sunday, four on Monday and five yesterday.
St John reported the day was not too busy, but more than once officers had to walk to patients when ambulances were unable to negotiate icy streets.
In Glenleith, three St John vehicles were dispatched to Tanner Rd, where ambulance officers had an "exceptionally difficult" time reaching a man in his 80s who received a serious head injury when he slipped on ice on a footpath on the steep street.
However, only a few other calls to ice-related injuries were received during the day, she said.
Hill suburb temperatures yesterday morning remained about 3 degrees colder than in the largely unaffected CBD.
In Spiers Rd, Halfway Bush, neighbourhood children took advantage of the compacted snow, which made a perfect downhill icy sledding track.
Dion Rowe, a resident of Turner St, off Spiers Rd, said he was basically stranded at home, unable to get a vehicle out over the centimetres-thick ice, although his wife had walked to work in the city.
In Brockville, a pedestrian said she had taken several hours to walk home from work in South Dunedin, as she did not want to drive in the ice.
Other residents spent hours shovelling snow from driveways and footpaths.
Mornington resident Mac McDonald (83) reckoned he had not seen snow this bad since "the big snow storm of 1939", which coincidentally also happened on July 25 that year, he said.
The conditions continued to affect roads and services yesterday, although disruptions were not as crippling as on Monday.
Only a few roads remained closed, while Queenstown and Dunedin airports were open and had started the job of making up dozens of flights cancelled over the previous two days.
The Dunedin City Council postponed kerbside rubbish collection shortly after noon because it was too icy on the hills.
Many childcare centres remained closed, although most retail outlets appeared to be open again after being closed for the day on Monday.
Bus services were running as normal by the end of the day and police reported generally good driver behaviour, with no serious accidents.
Some Dunedin supermarkets had last night run out or were very low on milk and bread.
The MetService forecasts fine weather for the rest of the week, with showers about the western ranges and south of Dunedin tomorrow and strong gusty northwesterlies for inland Otago.
