You folks be safe out there!

Woke up this morning to no heating.  The room we usually eat breakfast in was 10 C. We have a smart home which seemed to have had a senior moment so a quick reboot and the heating came on. This is the most snow we have had since we moved to this town in March 1979 when the snow was so deep my wife, who had returned by train to Redcar on the coast from a training course in Reading. This was a Friday night and she had to stay in a hotel overnight. Next day the roads were totally unpassable so I set off walking across the fields (roads too deep in snow) and she did the same from the other end, after buying some wellington boots and taking a taxi as far she could. We met at a village mid-way where some kind soul let use their house to change in. (I'd brought a backpack with a change of clothes for her plus a flask of coffee).

So glad we are retired these days and don't have to go anywhere (apart from walking a half mile to the town centre this morning to have breakfast in a cafe while the house warmed up).

Yeah, after today I’m not due back in work until next Wednesday... so I want to get home .

We’ve had about 10cm of snow and now it’s drifting, so a lot of the roads are closed/blocked and I’m not sure I want to risk driving it (there’s a 200ft hill between work and my house). One of my colleagues left the office at about 8:45 am yesterday after a night shift and he called us at about 11am to say he wasn’t even halfway home yet (it’s only a 6-mile journey)... he had to abandon the car and walk the last few miles, and he’s walking back in tonight.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Do you have a few places in mind on the drive home where you could leave your car if needed and walk from there?  Just thinking you may be able to make it 3 or 4 miles in the car, which would help.

But yeah, I would totally walk to get home if I didn't have to be back in.

Do you have a few places in mind on the drive home where you could leave your car if needed and walk from there?  Just thinking you may be able to make it 3 or 4 miles in the car, which would help.

But yeah, I would totally walk to get home if I didn't have to be back in.

Not sure - there are a couple of possible routes home and the problem is that I’m struggling to find out which roads are okay and which aren’t - I don’t want to get stuck in standstill traffic when I could have just walked it. Plus, the main road right outside work is currently closed and even military personnel in Land Rovers are struggling to leave the base. Some buses are running though, so might be able to get a bus partway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I had a light dusting of snow on Tuesday, but it mostly melted off when the sun shone on it yesterday.  I think the system coming up from the Atlantic is supposed to move in today bringing a lot of moisture with it, so I'll see snow starting this afternoon and off and on through Sunday.  I don't know if my husband is going to be able to make it home tomorrow night.  And I don't know if Tesco will be able to deliver my groceries tomorrow.  (I normally get them on a Thursday, but Tesco blocked off deliveries for today due to weather.)  And my house is all-electric, so if my electricity fails, I'll soon be frozen.

Please everyone don't forget the birds in this weather. Even if you don't have food for them, they'd thank you for some water. 

As I was walking home yesterday I noticed one of my neighbours has a giant bird feeding stand with 4 different types of feed. Birdies in this area are happy! Going to have to get one for our back yard to keep the kitten entertained. (from the windows, she's an indoor cat!)

Sent from my Pixel C using Tapatalk

People keep saying 'Oh this isn't much snow to you' but I think it's as dangerous as back home (NY).  My hometown would have the plows out immediately and there were laws about how long you had to shovel your walk.  Here no one shovels because they don't even own a shovel.  And the council has not plowed one street in the city centre.  The pavements and many of the streets are just solid ice from packed down snow melting and refreezing.  I saw a guy completely eat it on the pavement outside work today--luckily he was ok, but it could have been a lot worse.

Yeah, it drives me crazy at how crap they are at cleaning snow here.  Even the Highland Council, quite used to snow,  is rubbish at it. 

The last bad winter I experienced some of was Christmas 2009 when I was over for 2 weeks staying with my family in County Durham. The usual complaints were ringing everywhere about how countries used to snow and ice manage much better than the UK who always comes to a standstill. I listened to an article explaining before the government would invest many millions in equipment and systems to cope with hard winters but they had to be convinced it was going to be money well spent. The article stated that even 3 hard winters in a row would not be statistically significant to say that hard winters were becoming common, and so we will have to continue to endure bad disruption when we have severe winter conditions until such time it is deemed to be considered cost effective to have the sort of winter weather infrastructure, equipment and inventories that other countries have.

Even this latest winter event is probably a one-off freak event. While we freeze Siberia is experiencing temperatures as high as 32C above average for this time of year.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/27/arctic-warming-scientists-alarmed-by-crazy-temperature-rises

An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.

Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.

The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year.

Seasoned observers have described what is happening as “crazy,” “weird,” and “simply shocking”.

Yeah I totally get why the country shuts down when it snows because it only happens 1-2 days a year in the south and rarely in this quantity. The paths were all compressed snow and ice yesterday when I went out for groceries. We certainly don't have a snow shovel for our rental house and I haven't seen them for sale anywhere. Up north you would think they'd be better about it but I guess they still factor the cost and frequency vs economic impact of not having all the roads clear and more accidents.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Gatwick airport is more like a shopping mall with a runway than a proper airport. I've seen passengers sleep there for days because of half an inch of snow.

Gatwick airport is more like a shopping mall with a runway than a proper airport. I've seen passengers sleep there for days because of half an inch of snow.

When I was young.....they used to make pay me for the air that I breathed while I was in the airport.....(think Monty Python..Yorkshireman).

Gatwick airport is more like a shopping mall with a runway than a proper airport. I've seen passengers sleep there for days because of half an inch of snow.

My sister slept there one summer when her flight from Dallas arrived really late and she missed the last bus back up north. She had already been treated to the experience of exiting the aircraft on a slide when it aborted a takeoff due to an electrical fire, and then she hung around Dallas airport for hours waiting for a replacement flight.  She was only 18 at the time and said that airport security kept waking her up during the night saying she needed to keep a watchful eye on her hand luggage.

Sounds like she needed to keep a watchful eye on the security Guards

Sounds like she needed to keep a watchful eye on the security Guards

Yes indeed.

I made it home from work and I didn't have to walk it !

Luckily, the road outside work was allowing traffic one way (the way I needed to go), and all the other roads through the city were fine. It was only my residential road that was still covered in snow .

Fingers crossed I won't have to get back into work again in the next couple of days.