Snow UK

[jarndice]

I could put up with living in a country that suffered large annual snowfall what I cannot get my head round is what makes people build their homes out of wood in an area prone to Tornadoes each year or live in caravans in the same locale,
That seems to me to be inviting trouble,
Shaun.

[jarndice]

I bet you couldn't make an 8inch hole with that particular instrument more than once every minute with out the application of external warmth or the frequent swallowing of little "Blue" pills
Just saying.
Shaun.

[43rdRecceReg]

...and you soon discovered it was only three

[43rdRecceReg]

Down in Devon they've had 5ft snowdrifts, apparently. Imagine 10-15ft snowdrifts everyday for almost three months, and that will give an idea of Winter 1962-63. It was the worst winter ever recorded in Britain (records only began 100+ years ago for snow, apparently), and deemed to be the worst for over 200 years.
This is what my front gate looked like this morning with a modest 2 foot snowdrift.. Still, I wouldn't want to risk a Tamiya King Tiger in this, as Stian did in Norway Heng long maybe..now there's thought

Highland snowdrift...

Mind you, A Tauchpanzer might do well.

[Tiggr]

I've told you a million times

Don't exaggerate !

Ideal running opportunity.......

IMG_1069.JPG (87.46 KiB) Viewed 1020 times

[Will01Capri]

Had a bit of snow up my way, i still reckon the rest of the world looks and laughs at us, but it is the hardest snow conditions i have ever witnessed in the UK.
In total only 6inches but the Police closed all the local roads for safety reasons!
I only have cars, but i manged to get through all the snow in my cars which all run summer tryes with no issue. Even had people in 4x4s stopping me and telling me the road is unpassable i cant get through in this, so you got no chance. Then i drove through with ease!!! Numpty drama queens!

Unfortuantely the media really didn't help matters and it was blown out of all proportion, quite meladramatic! Quite frustrating, but in fairness to the UK, we are not used to it and not equipped to deal with this type of weather.

But its damn fun when it does come
Personally i love the snow and wouldn't mind if it happened more often. Then i could get my wife to drive the car and pull me along with my ski's behind

Unfortunately i didn't get the tanks out, but i did trial test my modofied WPL trucks, they were great fun in the snow. It was quite a dry snow so the wheels didn't clog like they did when it snowed over Christmas.

[43rdRecceReg]

Yes, Will, I noticed that the Weather sooth sayers had issue an unprecedented 'Red' alert for the Dumfries and Galloway area. A tad OTT, methinks.. In fact, Winters always seemed to be like this one in the 1950s and 60s. How well I remember frozen ears, chilblains, and cracked lips. Usually, we lots of icicle stalactites, bulging lead water pipes (yes, lead.. ), and cinders scattered on paths for extra grip. In Germany, it's compulsory for home owners to clear the path outside their homes, and this helps keep things moving. Mind you, in this age of 'compensation culture' we'd be reluctant to do that just in case some 'compo' vulture decided to fall over on our patch of path...
I think we were better equipped for hard winters then (snowploughs for trains etc..), but I suspect spending on appropriate infrastructure (snowblowers and the like) has declined over the years, and been hastened by the privatisation of road services.. (Bear of Scotland and others..). Also 'global warming' seems to take us from one weather extreme to the other, where winters (seemed or) were once predictably, and regularly cold...
On the topic of cars, it wasn't unusual for drivers to keep snow chains handy back then, just as they do in Switzerland and other Alpine regions today, as well as Northern Europe. Maybe we should too..

[rochesb]

Part of the problem with cars these days is the 'wide& low profile' ' summer tyres fitted on alloy wheels favoured by so many. Snow chains on these can damage the rims & anyone who has had a rim cracked or scuffed by a pothole will know how expensive they are to repair or replace. Snow socks can help but there is no substitute for winter tyres. These are mandatory in many countries across Europe. Unfortunately most motorists in the UK (myself included) struggle to justify the expense of another set of tyres/rims, not to mention having somewhere to store the 'other' set.

Even if you do buy a set of winter wheels, odds are the car in front of you on the road won't have them so when they get stuck, so do you. I found this out a few years back when I had a Land Rover Discovery with all-terrain tyres, pretty much unstoppable on snow, mud etc but no use when stuck behind a queue of cars on a slight incline covered in snow & ice.

The other problem is all the fancy driving aids cars have these days, things like traction control & automatic gearboxes. Sometimes you need your wheels to spin to get you moving & unless you turn off some of these features the car will come to a halt rather than let a wheel slip.

[jarndice]

The biggest single reason why roads in town are not cleared of snow effectively is "Speed Bumps",
You cant run a Snow plough down a road with Speed Bumps and as road salt fails to work below a certain temperature the roads can soon become impassable,
A Biker riding on a snow covered street which has somewhere underneath the snow those self same speed bumps is a recipe for disaster for the biker.
Shaun.

[rochesb]

The biggest single reason why roads in town are not cleared of snow effectively is "Speed Bumps",
You cant run a Snow plough down a road with Speed Bumps and as road salt fails to work below a certain temperature the roads can soon become impassable,
A Biker riding on a snow covered street which has somewhere underneath the snow those self same speed bumps is a recipe for disaster for the biker.
Shaun.

That's certainly very true of the local estate roads around where I live, none of them were ploughed during the recent snowfall. They used to run a snow plough through our street until they installed speed 'cushions' on the main road nearby. I believe these & other traffic 'calming' measures are responsible for an increase in air polution too.

Of course the taxi minibuses, white vans and buses just sail over them without slowing down.

[Max-U52]

Okay, Roy, here's your trivia fact for the day. I believe you meant to say stalactites. Stalactites hang down from above and stalagmites Grow Up From Below. I have a stupid little trick to remember that, I always tell myself tights from the top.

[43rdRecceReg]

Okay, Roy, here's your trivia fact for the day. I believe you meant to say stalactites. Stalactites hang down from above and stalagmites Grow Up From Below. I have a stupid little trick to remember that, I always tell myself tights from the top.

You're absolutely correct, Gary, and I thought I had written '..ac." and not "..ag..". Like you, I've known the difference since my school days: "C for Ceiling, 'G for ground: the golden rule." I can only think the predictive text thingy played one of its usual annoying tricks.. as earlier when it tried to convert "Haya' to 'Haha'. See it did it again, and I had to correct it. Changing 'Jarndice' to 'Jaundice' nearly got me into hot water once ..
and worse

[43rdRecceReg]

We believe you Mr 43rd, especially as I've done jaundice and midwife instead of midlife lol.

I'm pretty sure that Rad didn't intend to write "Thrust me.." (for 'trust me') the other day, but he did. It happens all too, often where what leaves your head and finger tips as a meaningful sentence, can sometimes be reduced to risible gobbledegook by spell checkers and predictive text features. I suppose it's worth scanning posts before adding them, but even then, rogue words seem to appear between the review and the click...

Although it's not a paper I subscribe to, after googling 'autocorrect mistakes", this Daily Mail article comes up with a few choice examples:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... .html......

[wibblywobbly]

Well I woke up at 6:30am, looked out of the window and....oooohhh dear!

It's still throwing it down.

Comments about snow tyres and 4x4's are quite correct, I used to have this little beastie years ago, and well remember taking over 4 hours to get the 6 miles home from work as everyone left work early and completely clogged the roads...which were free of snow!! I ended up having to drive out of the city and take a circular route back in to where I lived on the other side. The Surf was a lovely truck, I bought it online from Japan and had it shipped to the UK, owned by Komatsu it had been kitted out with every conceivable extra, uprated suspension electrically adjusted, raised suspension, torsion bars, turbo timer and programmer, boost gauge, remote controlled spotlights, uprated intercooler, ski rack, rear roof steps, side steps, it even had curtains, lol.