While coastal areas of the region enjoyed a largely chaos-free day, hilly areas bore the brunt of yesterday's wintry weather.

Heavy snow showers hammered the Pennines and parts of North Yorkshire and seven moorland roads in County Durham were closed.

Several drivers became trapped in snowdrifts and a lorry jack-knifed on the A66, which remained closed all day between Bowes and Cumbria due to blizzards and high winds.

In Darlington and Teesside it was a different picture, with sleet falling throughout the day and much of the remaining snow melting.

Across the region, almost 90 schools closed - all in County Durham and North Yorkshire.

In Consett, police constables Chris Davis, Peter Smith and Terry Graham, battled for two miles through snow up to six feet deep, to rescue a pregnant woman who was stranded on the moors.

The mum-to-be, eight months pregnant, had gone for a drive on the snow-laden moors in a 4x4 car with her husband and a male friend.

They had driven through Stanhope and up Crawleyside bank on to moorland, when their car got stuck.

The woman called the RAC and police at about 1pm to say she was cold and alone as her husband and friend had gone to seek help.

The Air Ambulance was unable to land due to deteriorating conditions and the officers drove from Castleside and onto the moors before leaving their vehicle and setting off on foot.

PC Graham, 26, said: "We drove as far as we could before our Land Rover got stuck and then we started walking. It was absolutely freezing, with blizzard conditions."

The woman, her husband and friend, from the Bishop Auckland area, were eventually pulled to safety by a tractor before the police arrived. The officers were picked up by a passing motorist.

Inspector Colin Nixon, of Durham Police, said: "We are urging people not to make unnecessary journeys. Some people ignore our advice, people who do are foolhardy and put themselves at serious risk and put an awful lot of people to a lot of trouble."

Eleswhere, an RAC mechanic who spent a night on a remote moor after being trapped by heavy snow said a big thank you to his rescuers yesterday.

Lee Walker spent almost 12 hours in his van near Rosedale Abbey, on the North York Moors, after police and an RAF rescue helicopter both failed to reach him.

He was eventually found safe and well by a mountain rescue team from RAF Leeming, North Yorkshire, at 5am yesterday.

The drama started at about 8pm on Wednesday when he was called out to help a 4x4 driver. Mr Walker, 33, from Great Barugh, near Malton, managed to get the motorist on his way, but found his van stuck in the worsening conditions.

Not everyone was cursing the winter weather. Sales of road salt have tripled at Cleveland Potash in Boulby. Chris Gibson, company spokesman, said until this week sales of the salt, which is used to grit roads and footpaths, had been 33 per cent of what was expected during mid-winter.

"Sales have gone back up to 100 per cent this week," he said. "We are quite pleased about the snow, the more the merrier."

The mine supplies salt to almost every council along the east coast, from Kent to Aberdeen.