Dawlish wrote:
On Sunday, December 1, 2013 11:01:58 AM UTC, John Hall wrote:
In industrial Castleford it was appalling. Not fog, but nasty
smelling smog, which necessitated scarves around one's mouth to
attempt to strain the pollution out of it. I remember it very well,
though I was very young. My parents were not able to get home to
Pontefract on Christmas Eve 1962 and us all had to stay with an aunt
and uncle. Only one prezzie on Christmas morning wasn't fun! Santa
didn't know where I was and delivered them to Pontefract, of course!

If you stood in the middle of a 5m wide pavement, you could see
neither the road, nor the walls of the terraces, the smog was that
thick. The bus conductors were hanging out of the bus calling the
distance from the kerb to the driver - before they stopped running,
of course, leaying us stranded! We had great difficulty finding our
way only 200m along the pavement to our relations' flat in that fog.
By far the worst I've ever known and thank goodness we don't see the
like of it any more.

From a meteorological point of view it would be fascinating to
experience, but beyond that it's just as well we don't get such
conditions anymore. It must have been highly unpleasant even for
the fit & healthy, but of course deadly for the old & vulnerable.
Thousands of 'excess deaths', but this is what the Clean Air Act
was introduced to tackle and now thankfully those days are long gone.
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl
Snow videos:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3QvmL4UWBmHFMKWiwYm_gg