On 25 Jan 2005 02:25:09 -0800, "BlueLightning"
wrote:
Well Hello,
It's a [Tuesday], and yes it's rant time
I can't hold this one back
I had a quick glance in the Mirror Paper yesterday,
page two headline, Big Freeze Set To Hit The Uk
They claimed the snowstorm that effected New York last weekend was
heading our way
Well no - but many tabloid journalists are easily confused. However,
there is a snow grain of truth in what they say; the true situation is
explained by Joe *******i in his current Europe column. Note his use
of the word "can", not "will":
" It is not a coincidence that major fuel consumption areas such as
the far east, western Europe and the northeast can get cold at the
same time, as they are all teleconnection points for a three-wave
pattern, in other words, when we have a pattern where there are three
main long waves developing and there is blocking developing, these
three areas can all get very cold at the same time."
http://wwwa.accuweather.com/adcbin/p...?type=jbeurope
That the south-east could even see a slight covering in places
And the temperatures... wait for it
Will be as low as 4 degrees C in places
That is Plus 4 degrees, not minus
I laughed out loud when i read the article 
If this comes off, the main thrust of cold snowy weather seems to be
on the Continent of Europe rather than the UK. The tabloids are easily
confused by matters geographical, too.
Let's see, New York had two foot of snow over the weekend.
I checked out various New York webcams during the event and since
Roads have been cleared and are open.
People in New York will be going to work today
Children will be going to school today
Not on Monday they weren't... well not outside NYC. All schools were
closed in the worst affected areas of New York State and further North
along the coastal areas such as Boston, to allow further snow
clearance operations to take place on Monday... and for as long as it
takes. This was explained by a US (American) reporter live on Sky News
yesterday evening.
As they will be in other countries that have severe winters, parts of
Finland for example
Cost-benefit ratios!
So isn't it curious that London and the South-East area of England in
general can't seem to cope with a light snow cover
I know it's become a very rare event,
Exactly. As I hinted, it's all down to cost-benefit calculations.
but really
New York can cope with a huge snowstorm, they pick themselves up and
get on with it, so London should really be able to cope with light snow
With light snow, all we really need are well gritted roads and if
things are organised properly we can cope with light snow - but not
with heavy snow. We could cope with heavy snow too, if we wanted to
spend the money: forgive me if I've used the following example before.
Back in the days of yore, when men were men and snow was real snow, I
worked in Buxton Derbyshire and 3 or 4 times in most years, they'd get
an 8 to 12 inch snowfall in the town and/or on the surrounding roads
going upto 1400 to 1700 feet asl. I well remember one 10 inch
overnight snowfall: town centre roads were all cleared by 9 am and
pavements (using hand snowploughs, not shovels!) by 10 am;
surrounding main roads, too. This was simply because they expected an
occasional snowstorm and were prepared for it, as NYC seems to be.
They thought it was cost-effective to have a bolt-on snowplough for
each of the half dozen or so main access roads and were able to keep
them running while snow was falling, making the clearance work
afterwards much easier. Outlying areas away from main roads did,
however, take longer to clear - as in New York state.
I strongly suspect that Buxtonians would not cope as well these days
because the frequency of such heavy snowfalls has declined
dramatically (a resident of Flash - near Buxton but much higher up -
told me this a few years ago). Keeping all those ploughs available and
men on standby, for a population of 20 to 30,000, would soon have
today's bean counters waving their calculators in a frenzy.
But... it *can* be done and I suspect that in certain parts of
Scotland, it still is done.
That's the end of my rant for today
Mine, too!
--
Dave