It's snowing!

[Jaded]

I was talking to my daughter-out-law just now. She's Finnish, now living in North Essex, near Colchester. It seems that they have had a fair bit more snow than we have, and we have had the most for years - possibly as far back as 1987.

"I have never, ever, known it as bad as it is now," she exclaimed.

"But surely you must have had snowier conditions in Finland...?"

"Yes, but I was talking about the infrastructure. I have never known the infrastructure fail as abjectly! These roads are mostly impassable and there's only been a foot of snow!"

And in this post you have answered her implied question. 1987 is thirty years ago. It's just not worth investing in the equipment and designing infrastructure to cope with an event that happens for a couple of days once every thirty years or so.

It’s infrastructure that no one wants to pay for, and it’s a load of entitled humpty wazzocks with summer tyres (and quite likely 4x4s) who think it is possible to drive in any conditions. You can see the results of their actions in blocked roads all over, and news stories “no one is telling us anything!”

[PaulF]

The question that never seems to be asked when they interview motorists stuck in the snow is "What were you thinking when you set out? Why was your journey so necessary?"

[Jakob W]

You'd be surprised how much snow clearing equipment that airports hold in stock and well maintained "just in case"

Bit hard to just ask an A380 to park up and wait for a tow, we'll be along in a bit with space blankets and flasks of coffee, thobut...

[hatler]

There's clearly a business case for airports have snow clearing stuff 'just in case'.

I'm not sure, as a council tax payer, I'd be happy with my local authority paying out the sort of money required to buy, maintain and house a bunch of equipment that is used for two days every ten years.

[phantasmagoriana]

Snow day #3. It's no longer snowing, but having just been out for a short walk to the shops, most of them are closed. It's colder today than in previous days, too - there's an icy wind.

[ian]

You'd be surprised how much snow clearing equipment that airports hold in stock and well maintained "just in case"

Bit hard to just ask an A380 to park up and wait for a tow, we'll be along in a bit with space blankets and flasks of coffee, thobut...

Plus they got significantly embarrassed by being caught out one year. And the safety (and logistic) implications of diverting aircraft if you can't land them.

I too wonder what goes through those drivers' minds when they do the voxpops about been stuck on the motorway. After days of doom-laden weather forecasts. It wasn't like it snuck up on us.

Snow in the UK is occasional, not worth budgeting for. It's not Canada where snow is a fact of winter. We could do a far better job of gritting pavements and stuff. That's shockingly bad in the UK and frost and freezing temperatures aren't so unusual.

[Jurek]

When questioned about the borough-wide absence of grit / salt bins, LB of Lewisham's answer was that they removed them on account of the number of complaints they had received from people who'd had grit / salt thrown into their front gardens 

[ian]

When questioned about the borough-wide absence of grit / salt bins, LB of Lewisham's answer was that they removed them on account of the number of complaints they had received from people who'd had grit / salt thrown into their front gardens 

Peculiar. Tbh, as a former resident of the LBL, I'd expect them to fill up with empty Fosters cans and rat bones in their greasy Alabama Fried Chicken coffins.

Surrey did expediently fill the grit bin opposite us (and the bottom of the hill), but then we do we do live on a short, steep hill (and there's fifty or so houses reliant on it*) and they have no plans to grit it themselves. Most of the local streets are narrow and overparked, so they probably couldn't grit them without people complaining they get grit on their cars. There's no provision for gritting pavements.

*the number of whom help grit the hill themselves = 0, the two grit fairies are me because I can't be bothered with cars slip-sliding outside my house and the local councillor who lives further up.

[Wowbagger]

How does freezing rain work? That's what we've got now. The car is covered with granular ice. The temperature is -1°C.

[ian]

Two methods. The rain that falls is below freezing but still liquid. Once it hits a surface with nucleation points, it freezes. Or it's warmer rain falling on a surface that has cooled to below zero. Mostly the former in conditions like this.

ETA: you see the nucleation points in the picture, the bobbles. Probably bits of dust and dirt on the window.

[Wowbagger]

Thanks. The bit I struggle to get my head round is that there is water, still in a liquid state, that is below 0°C.

[spesh]

Thanks. The bit I struggle to get my head round is that there is water, still in a liquid state, that is below 0°C.

It relies on the water being particularly clean - i.e. lacking dust particles around which ice crystals can nucleate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling

[Canardly]

I could never get my head around glass being a super cooled liquid.

[ian]

Thanks. The bit I struggle to get my head round is that there is water, still in a liquid state, that is below 0°C.

Absolutely pure water can be cooled to -48 degrees. But it has to be perfect container, the smallest nucleation point will start crystal formation, and it'll freeze.

Sorry to say that glass isn't any kind of liquid. It's an amorphous solid.

[Wowbagger]

Nicked off Twitter. Dorset this morning. Blimey.

[PaulF]

The question that never seems to be asked when they interview motorists stuck in the snow is "What were you thinking when you set out? Why was your journey so necessary?"

And we have an answer:

[Jakob W]

Phase transitions are weird - I'm reminded of these experiments by the historian and philosopher of science Hasok Chang, who re-did a load of 18th/19th-c. experiments to try and determine the boiling temperature of water: http://www.sites.hps.cam.ac.uk/boiling/

[pcolbeck]

So far this morning I have mopped up the attic where the frozen pipe leaked again (managed to find a shut off for that circuit this time so hopefully that's the last time) and helped a fellow villager digi his scar out of a snow drift where it had been stuck all night whilst I was walking the dog. Four wheel drive doesn't help when all four wheel are in the air apparently.

[Beardy]

Approx 6" here in central Edinburgh and more coming down sporadically. I was a bit cross at work yesterday when my line manager sent all the car drivers home but said I had to stay because the buses were still running. When I asked what I was supposed to do if the buses stopped, she told me I'd have a long walk.

I have no objection to walking in the snow, but I don't see why the motorists should be exempt. So I told her I was leaving once I'd finish what I was doing, and I did.

I remember that winter well because I was an apprentice at the time and was doing my stint with a 'Subs App and Line'¹ man who had the area Land Rover². He was tasked with taking an exchange maintenance man from Otley to Blubberhouses, because LAND ROVER so we piled in and set off over the moors twixt the Wharfe Valley and the Washburn valley. We turned around when we came across an abandoned tractor attached to an abandoned Land Rover, went back to Otley, and then around the low roads via Harrogate.

1. known to the general public as the telephone man or the telephone engineer as he is the face they see when their phones break.
2. Yep, even in rural Yorkshire in the 70s and 80s we only had one Land Rover for the telephone area.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Approx 6" here in central Edinburgh and more coming down sporadically. I was a bit cross at work yesterday when my line manager sent all the car drivers home but said I had to stay because the buses were still running. When I asked what I was supposed to do if the buses stopped, she told me I'd have a long walk.

I have no objection to walking in the snow, but I don't see why the motorists should be exempt. So I told her I was leaving once I'd finish what I was doing, and I did.

Great photo! Which one is you? 

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Scones, crumpets or bagels?" I asked CdzzmcJnr, whose school is closed until the thaw. "Don't mind," said he. I was saved from making the decision by the complete lack of any sort of bread in the stupormkt. Which is better, really, cos I'll make some, which is what I should have done all along.

There are more sledges than cars on the main road this morning. This is good. 

[rogerzilla]

The Co-Op near me is as empty of staples as a Soviet-era grocer.

The Mazda dealer cannot give me my car, even if I wanted to risk driving it home.  The steep ramp from their underground car park is impassable.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The Co-Op near me is as empty of staples as a Soviet-era grocer.

Don't be silly, you need a stationer's for staples!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Snow day! No work 
The weirdest bit is the ice which was formed on the outside of the windows facing east.

Like so?


That's north-facing, mind.

[pumpkin]

that photo! Do we even have snow like that now in England? I've cycled in Europe between the snow banks but it's quite amazing to think that was 'only' 40 yrs ago