I am thoroughly enjoying today's crisp feel here, under perfectly blue
skies and brilliant sunshine. Temp 0.4C ATM.

I missed the teatime event yesterday (I was still working in the basement
of an office in Central London) but I was stuck in E. London for a while
in the evening. I notice it again resulted from the classic sudden
teatime snowfall, (c.f. 30th Jan 2003) with the roads freezing almost
straight away, which was talked about a couple of weeks ago on this ng.

There's a lot of "who's to blame" talk ATM, but I do think that the
gritters really have no chance in this situation, where heavy standing
traffic forms and then the gritters can't get through the gridlock. Maybe
it's more an effect of the growing volume of traffic than the ability of
the utilities to cope.

Much more feeble were the London Tube's excuses for delays yesterday
morning: "Inclement weather conditions" and "slippery rails" (?) were two
I heard whilst waiting half an hour for a Central Line train at an
overground station in East London . There had been the merest skittering
of snow but the stations pathways were lethal: a thin layer of ice over
the whole platform posed a real risk of commuters sliding under a train
(if there had been one along). Given that the salt was available, it
would have taken one man less than half an hour to sort this out. I
notice there's an equally justified fuss this lunchtime about the icy
state of the pavements in central London, where pedestrians have spent
this morning mostly falling over.

If this is progress, give me the old days, when station staff and council
workers would have been busy salting the pavements by hand, often before
the snow arrived.

And a friend has just phoned to say that, last evening, he spent a
miserable 3 hrs at Stansted Airport (Essex), waiting for a plane from
Germany that didn't turn up. Incredibly, he says that when it "closed"
the airport turned off the heating to try to get the people who were
standing, waiting for it to reopen, to "go away". If that's true, it
strikes me as a breathtakingly cynical disregard for customer care.

Looking beyond the imminent return of more "normal" winter weather, I'm no
expert, but doesn't next Saturday's chart (7th Feb) look interesting? see:
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/avnpanel1.html

I appreciate that it's a long way off in forecasting terms, but we maybe
shouldn't write the winter off yet?

- Tom
Blackmore, SW Essex.

"Tom Bennett" wrote in message
...
I am thoroughly enjoying today's crisp feel here, under perfectly blue
skies and brilliant sunshine. Temp 0.4C ATM.

I missed the teatime event yesterday (I was still working in the basement
of an office in Central London) but I was stuck in E. London for a while
in the evening. I notice it again resulted from the classic sudden
teatime snowfall, (c.f. 30th Jan 2003) with the roads freezing almost
straight away, which was talked about a couple of weeks ago on this ng.

There's a lot of "who's to blame" talk ATM, but I do think that the
gritters really have no chance in this situation, where heavy standing
traffic forms and then the gritters can't get through the gridlock. Maybe
it's more an effect of the growing volume of traffic than the ability of
the utilities to cope.

There was gridlock here in west Sheffield from 3.30pm onwards as everyone
jumped in their cars and tried to get home. All the side roads were
treacherous compacted skating rinks by 4.30pm.

Fair point about the gritters, but surely their management could see from
the radar images that the snow was coming? They could have gone out an hour
before, surely.

Or maybe they don't have the internet!

- Michael

Hi Tom, yes what a fantastic day and week for that matter.Coldest max of the
week as well. That chart looks like an omega block (something I've just
learned on here and have probably got wrong) and very similar to the start
of this week's cold spell.

Dave

I would imagine this type of blocking is less stable than that of a typical
Scandinavian blocking pattern. As a result they would tend to last for only
a few days at a time. Anyone here have a better understanding of this type
of block???

Shaun Pudwell.


"Dave. C" wrote in message
...
Hi Tom, yes what a fantastic day and week for that matter.Coldest max of
the
week as well. That chart looks like an omega block (something I've just
learned on here and have probably got wrong) and very similar to the start
of this week's cold spell.

Dave

To be perfectly honest Tom, we see all this blame banded about each winter
about road gritting, but what rights have we on the subject.
We pay our council tax each year to our local authorities not knowing
exactly where its going, or what for. And then we pick on some poor
unfortunate soul who's job it is to carry out this thankless task.
Actually, I completely despair with this country. We now have regular school
closures every time a few flakes fall for fear that the little darlings may
hurt themselves on school premises, and place a hefty claim on the local
authorities, forget the fact that when not in school they are out sledging
down steep hills, across roads and frozen ponds as they do round here.

God help this country if the Gulf stream does change direction. Schools will
be closed from November till April every year.
I would love to hear the Scandinavian or Canadian point of view on how we
handle our snowfalls in this country.
Quite frankly I think its too serious to laugh at.

Regards. Len.





"Tom Bennett" wrote in message
...
I am thoroughly enjoying today's crisp feel here, under perfectly blue
skies and brilliant sunshine. Temp 0.4C ATM.

I missed the teatime event yesterday (I was still working in the basement
of an office in Central London) but I was stuck in E. London for a while
in the evening. I notice it again resulted from the classic sudden
teatime snowfall, (c.f. 30th Jan 2003) with the roads freezing almost
straight away, which was talked about a couple of weeks ago on this ng.

There's a lot of "who's to blame" talk ATM, but I do think that the
gritters really have no chance in this situation, where heavy standing
traffic forms and then the gritters can't get through the gridlock. Maybe
it's more an effect of the growing volume of traffic than the ability of
the utilities to cope.

Much more feeble were the London Tube's excuses for delays yesterday
morning: "Inclement weather conditions" and "slippery rails" (?) were two
I heard whilst waiting half an hour for a Central Line train at an
overground station in East London . There had been the merest skittering
of snow but the stations pathways were lethal: a thin layer of ice over
the whole platform posed a real risk of commuters sliding under a train
(if there had been one along). Given that the salt was available, it
would have taken one man less than half an hour to sort this out. I
notice there's an equally justified fuss this lunchtime about the icy
state of the pavements in central London, where pedestrians have spent
this morning mostly falling over.

If this is progress, give me the old days, when station staff and council
workers would have been busy salting the pavements by hand, often before
the snow arrived.

And a friend has just phoned to say that, last evening, he spent a
miserable 3 hrs at Stansted Airport (Essex), waiting for a plane from
Germany that didn't turn up. Incredibly, he says that when it "closed"
the airport turned off the heating to try to get the people who were
standing, waiting for it to reopen, to "go away". If that's true, it
strikes me as a breathtakingly cynical disregard for customer care.

Looking beyond the imminent return of more "normal" winter weather, I'm no
expert, but doesn't next Saturday's chart (7th Feb) look interesting? see:
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/avnpanel1.html

I appreciate that it's a long way off in forecasting terms, but we maybe
shouldn't write the winter off yet?

- Tom
Blackmore, SW Essex.

"Weatherman" wrote in message
...
To be perfectly honest Tom, we see all this blame banded about each winter
about road gritting, but what rights have we on the subject.
We pay our council tax each year to our local authorities not knowing
exactly where its going, or what for. And then we pick on some poor
unfortunate soul who's job it is to carry out this thankless task.
Actually, I completely despair with this country. We now have regular
school
closures every time a few flakes fall for fear that the little darlings
may
hurt themselves on school premises, and place a hefty claim on the local
authorities, forget the fact that when not in school they are out sledging
down steep hills, across roads and frozen ponds as they do round here.

God help this country if the Gulf stream does change direction. Schools
will
be closed from November till April every year.
I would love to hear the Scandinavian or Canadian point of view on how we
handle our snowfalls in this country.
Quite frankly I think its too serious to laugh at.

Regards. Len.


Don't worry too much, we'll be able to cope then. If it's like Scandinavia.
we'll have the investment in equipment necessary and the training on how to
use it. Don't bother with Scandinavia, or Canada, just visit somewhere like
East Kilbride (200m ASL in Scotland) and see how they handle it. They must
be laughing up their sleeves at the disruption a couple of cm of snow has
caused in the South yet again. GW or not, it still snows properly up there
most, if not all years.

--
Pete

Please take my dog out twice to e-mail

---------------------------------------------------------------
The views expressed above are entirely those of the writer and
do not represent the views, policy or understanding of any
other person or official body.
---------------------------------------------------------------


"Tom Bennett" wrote in message
...
I am thoroughly enjoying today's crisp feel here, under perfectly blue
skies and brilliant sunshine. Temp 0.4C ATM.

I missed the teatime event yesterday (I was still working in the
basement
of an office in Central London) but I was stuck in E. London for a while
in the evening. I notice it again resulted from the classic sudden
teatime snowfall, (c.f. 30th Jan 2003) with the roads freezing almost
straight away, which was talked about a couple of weeks ago on this ng.

There's a lot of "who's to blame" talk ATM, but I do think that the
gritters really have no chance in this situation, where heavy standing
traffic forms and then the gritters can't get through the gridlock.
Maybe
it's more an effect of the growing volume of traffic than the ability of
the utilities to cope.

Much more feeble were the London Tube's excuses for delays yesterday
morning: "Inclement weather conditions" and "slippery rails" (?) were
two
I heard whilst waiting half an hour for a Central Line train at an
overground station in East London . There had been the merest
skittering
of snow but the stations pathways were lethal: a thin layer of ice
over
the whole platform posed a real risk of commuters sliding under a train
(if there had been one along). Given that the salt was available, it
would have taken one man less than half an hour to sort this out. I
notice there's an equally justified fuss this lunchtime about the icy
state of the pavements in central London, where pedestrians have spent
this morning mostly falling over.

If this is progress, give me the old days, when station staff and
council
workers would have been busy salting the pavements by hand, often before
the snow arrived.

And a friend has just phoned to say that, last evening, he spent a
miserable 3 hrs at Stansted Airport (Essex), waiting for a plane from
Germany that didn't turn up. Incredibly, he says that when it "closed"
the airport turned off the heating to try to get the people who were
standing, waiting for it to reopen, to "go away". If that's true, it
strikes me as a breathtakingly cynical disregard for customer care.

Looking beyond the imminent return of more "normal" winter weather, I'm
no
expert, but doesn't next Saturday's chart (7th Feb) look interesting?
see:
http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/avnpanel1.html

I appreciate that it's a long way off in forecasting terms, but we maybe
shouldn't write the winter off yet?

- Tom
Blackmore, SW Essex.

"Pete B" wrote in message

Don't worry too much, we'll be able to cope then. If it's like
Scandinavia.
we'll have the investment in equipment necessary and the training on how
to
use it. Don't bother with Scandinavia, or Canada, just visit somewhere
like
East Kilbride (200m ASL in Scotland) and see how they handle it. They
must
be laughing up their sleeves at the disruption a couple of cm of snow has
caused in the South yet again. GW or not, it still snows properly up there
most, if not all years.

I think you have summed it up nicely. You should invest for what you are
likely to suffer from. I remember being in the Ross area when it absolutely
chucked it down. A terrific rain storm, all the roads were standing water.
Yet in Cumbria we would have had that for three or four hours before many of
the roads became the worse for it. We have serious rain so hopefully
engineer accordingly. East Kilbride have snow and gear up for it.
Jim Webster

"Weatherman" wrote
snip
God help this country if the Gulf stream does change direction. Schools
will be closed from November till April every year.

I would love to hear the Scandinavian or Canadian point of view on how we
handle our snowfalls in this country.
Quite frankly I think its too serious to laugh at.

I think we had such a view the other night, Len, when someone in the US
quite understandably wondered what all the fuss was about but, equally, he
clearly didn't understand our weather.

If we had Canadian winters, we'd have Canadian methods for coping with
them. But we have the best (or worst) of all worlds. With such low
probabilities of severe weather, it's hardly surprising that, as a nation,
we place such a low priority on planning (or spending) to cope with it.
The trick is, I think, in developing the systems to cope and then keeping
them live but on-hold. Given the warning we had before yesterday's
episode, I'm appalled that (for example) neither London Underground or
many London Boroughs could field either the men or very simple equipment
needed just to grit the pavements and platforms.

I'm sure there are many citizens who are tonight nursing sprained limbs
and worse because the authorities failed to plan properly.

In answer to your point about climate change, we'd be forced to adapt and
we would do so. It was Benjamin Franklin who invented the pot-bellied
stove, purely as a reaction to the methods of heating that his fellow
Englishmen had brought with them when they first settled and which then
proved to be totally inadequate to cope with the rigours of a north-east
US winter. Not that many Englishmen of that time (or this) could probably
even *imagine* a US winter until they'd actually experienced it.

Regards,

- Tom

I would love to hear the Scandinavian or Canadian point of view on how we
handle our snowfalls in this country.

I was in Canada last winter when a foot of snow fell over night in the city
(Regina) none of the roads were treated or cleared - the traffic was left to
sort itself out. However all the main pavements were snow blown clear by
9am. Just different priorities.

However in defence of the UK I think they would have struggled in conditions
like yesterday. What they don't have over there as much as we do is
marginal conditions. When its -20 its much simpler - you are driving on
packed dry snow not ice and you can use a snow blower to clear it. None of
which would have helped in (say) Birmingham city centre yesterday.

Chris Gadsby

"Tom Bennett" wrote in message
...

If we had Canadian winters, we'd have Canadian methods for coping with
them. But we have the best (or worst) of all worlds. With such low
probabilities of severe weather, it's hardly surprising that, as a nation,
we place such a low priority on planning (or spending) to cope with it.
The trick is, I think, in developing the systems to cope and then keeping
them live but on-hold. Given the warning we had before yesterday's
episode, I'm appalled that (for example) neither London Underground or
many London Boroughs could field either the men or very simple equipment
needed just to grit the pavements and platforms.


In the UK our snow situations tend to be rather messy, involving temps
hovering around freezing. So we get an unpredictable mix of melting
(both under presseure of traffic and sunshine) rain washing the salt away,
refreezing and fresh snow falling onto ice. An absolute nightmare for
the gritters!

In Canada it tends to either snow or not snow.
And if it does snow it tends to be powdery snow that can easily be blown
away. They don't even bother to salt the roads as salting doesn't work
below about -15C anyway. Cars will have snow tyres and snow tracks.

I wonder how they cope in areas like the SE states of the US where
the possibility of heavy (possibily wet) snow is part of the climate but
tends to ocurr sporadically.

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.
http://www.reddwarfer.btinternet.co.uk