Carry warm clothing, food, water, boots, de-icer, torch and spade in your car
Plan your journey before leaving home
Check the weather forecast
Check your route for delays
How much snow is forecast? Apparently 2 centimeters is expected in the south, with "up to 5cm of snow in some areas" of northeast England and eastern Scotland. Temperatures will 'struggle' to reach 2 or 3 degrees Celsius. Hmm, let's see, we had about 10 centimeters yesterday and the town didn't even think it was worth plowing our street! Temperatures here tomorrow are supposed to reach a high of 14 degrees Fahrenheit (that's minus 10 Celsius), but it will feel more like 0 Fahrenheit (minus 18 Celsius) because of the windchill. Recess (playtime) at school will be indoors I'm sure.
I have driven in the UK when there has been that much/little snow and I have to say the BBC is right - there is often chaos on the roads. The roads are untreated and drivers don't have enough experience of driving in the snow. And then of course, it could always be the 'wrong kind' of snow for the snow ploughs ;-) The kind of snow is more significant than I ever realised when I was living in the UK. We had the 'right kind' of snow here this week - it was excellent for making snow men! On the other hand, it was also the wrong kind of snow as it was heavy to shovel - however I was lucky enough not to have to experience that as my darling DH took care of it all!
What it looked like here yesterday afternoon:
Thinking of converting temperatures, I just made Dear Daughter go through her homework adding in an F after all the degrees symbols. Her math/science homework was about temperatures and only 'degrees' was specified when it should have been 'degrees Fahrenheit'. I explained to her why it mattered to be specific about the unit of measurement. OK, so she's only in elementary school, but surely it's not too early to think precisely and scientifically?
6 comments:
Wow, that's pretty. We rarely get that much snow in the more arid parts of Colorado's western slope. Thanks for sharing the photo.
Lovely picture, AA. I don't like snow I'm afraid and we had a very small helping of it yesterday but thankfully it's gone this morning. I always feel that this country are never ready for it. And why do people drive at the same speed? Then wonder why accidents happen?!
Signed, Victor Meldrew.
Aka, Crystal xx
You are right about a small amount of snow causing choas in the UK. When I was a child we used to have lots of snow in Winter but there weren't that many cars about. When my own children were young and I was driving regularly there were enough 'bad' winters for drivers to gain experience and children to make great snowmen and igloos in the garden.
During the last 20 years or so snow has not been as deep or longlasting and people seem to have forgotten how to cope with it.
At the first sign of black ice here in the Ardennes the newspaper was full of reports of accidents.
I know I always smile when I hear about them getting snow in the UK. When I was living there about four years ago, we had about 2cm which were gone by 11am but it took me an hour to drive to work, a journey which normally took 8 mins. I remember I saw a sensible work colleague walking to work, and of course she was there well before me. I should have done the same but by the time I realised the extent of the problem (having lived in Canada prior to this it did not occur to me this much snow would be a problem), i.e. two minutes down the road, I was well and truly blocked in and that was that. Thanks for popping by my blog.
Yes we in the UK are not very good with to much snow!
I love photos of fresh fallen snow.
White alert! White alert! Panic stations!!! I love a bit of collective hysteria and we Brits do it so well...
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