h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But reading this morning that a half inch of snow has brought London to a virtual standstill, I had to. Do you lot in the UK really never get snow? Things don't get hairy here in Chicago till we get 12" or more. The only time in my adult life I've missed work because of snow, we got 26" in a couple of hours during the wee hours of the morning, the wind blew it against the front of my building, and I couldn't open the front door. Fortunately, no one asked why I didn't just go out the back.

I'm not trying to make fun. I k now it's all relative to what you're used to and what the local infrastructure is equipped to handle.

But it does make me giggle. Almost as much as when my parents down in Florida moan how cold they are when it's 50°F (10°C) down there. I don't even need long sleeves at that temperature.

Maybe I'm just jealous because I wish I could stay home from work too!

it is laughable an many brits also feel we're a bit useless at weather! Thing is - it *used* to be like what you experience. We used to feet of snow, back before the mid 80s or so. We used to be able to cope as well. But since the 90s we rarely get more than a dusting of snow and it rarely stays for more than a day or so.

Hey, I find it laughable too! The whole country has a snow-day for no good reason.

But where I am outside London it's just now stopped snowing after 24 hrs. And we now have about 40cm of even snow. It's everywhere. I think that would count as significant even in Chicago?

It's just one of those things that people have to put up with for the few days when you really can't get around.

Here we don't have that much snow - but we're watching the UK news and they are saying things like "there's a foot of snow" then walking accross a virgin snowfield, and barely going in up to their ankles, so I wonder how much snow they really have (we had more than that fall over Saturday night)

40 cm = around 15 inches. That's not an insignificant amount, no. It wouldn't warrant a snow day here or anything, maybe for public schools if it fell in a very short amount of time as opposed to accumulating over say, a half day or a day or so, where plows would be able to keep up with it.

A serious question and not sarcasm at all- do you have snow plows in the UK or salt trucks? I thought I read once that what you have are little bins with salt that verious people go out with, but not actual salt trucks. Here, we have trucks with plows on the front and which spread salt out the back.

Side streets (residential streets) don't get plowed, so significant snowfall is a pain in the ass there.

A foot of snow wouldn't bring Chicago to a halt, no. We might see some traffic delays, so buses might run a bit late, if it fell as I say in a short amount of time, like 2-3 hours, say. Trash collection, mail delivery, etc, would all continue per normal and I can't imagine many businesses or public facilities closing.

I'm really not having a go- I was genuinely curious as to what weather patterns are like and what the infrastructure is like. I was in the UK over the Christmas and New Year's holidays during 2003, and it neither snowed nor was cold enough for me to need a winter jacket (I was able to get by wearing a warm cardigan) for the duration of the visit and I wondered if that was normal for this time of year, or if snow and cold was the norm.

we do have snow ploughs and gritters and whatnot - but in some areas there is a lack of grit to use due to the limited amount they stockpile.

Snowploughs themselves I haven't seen in ages although I was very taken by the mini 1 man snow plough being used to clear the paths and walkways at the uni today - I want one!

There are salt trucks, as well as the little bins.

But really, when you think about it, it's more cost effective to write off a few hours of missed productivity for the one or two days a year than it would be to invest in proper plant and machinery to deal with the snow. *We* all think it's laughable too, but there just isn't the point buying snow chains or whatever. For all but one or two days a year they would just sit gathering dust.

And, if you suspect that we just use it as an excuse and completely milk it for all it's worth - well, there's probably an element of that to it.

Did the one man plow thing look like a lawn mower with a chute on the side, sort of? We call those snow blowers. My landlord has one of them. Why, I don't know, he never bothers and K or I always wind up shoveling the front walk and stairs ourselves. Landlord even went so far as to leave a snow shovel inside the front door at the foot of the stairs "in case we wanted to do it".

The environmental impact of all that salt is also worth considering - using salt is frowned upon here.

Snow chains are illegal in Chicago. I don't know about the rest of the state. When I had my Volvo in the late 80s and early 90s, I used to put snow tires on during winter. It was worth having them for the few days a year driving was especially slippery.

I can appreciate that it wouldn't be worth investing in all kinds of removal stuff if you only use it a few times a year- it would be a bit of a waste.

And who doesn't like an excuse to play hooky? Told you, I'm jealous! I've trudged to my train through snow up to my ass because too much snow isn't always an acceptable excuse here. I'd get away with it now, my boss is understanding enough and I have an exemplary attendance record. But we haven't yet had more than a foot or two of snow since I've worked here, so it hasn't been that hard to get to work.

Oh, right, and snow tyres: you're not legally *required* to have them in the winter, but if you're involved in an accident during the winter months and don't have them on your car, you're automatically 100% at fault from an insurance point of view!

The worst thing about salt and plows is the ENORMOUS potholes they leave behind. Spring and summer in Chicago, we have endless road construction to patch up all the holes from winter. We had one in front of our house last year that was big enough to hide a few bodies in- they had to put a sheet of metal over it for a while to stop cars being stuck in it.

I use environmentally friendly ice melt stuff, at my own expense, for our porch, to stop the landlord using salt.

This is true, of course. I did wonder at someone today throwing salt all over her lawn by the shovel-load.

There's a massive salt mine just a bit up the road from me (and stretching well under the sea). Nearly all of it goes on the roads across the UK and the eastern USA.

There's a huge DMV facility about six miles west of me, and they have salt silos there. I don't know where the other ones are- though there may be some near the Morton Salt factory, which is between my home and downtown.

To my knowledge lack of snow tires has no bearing on insurance or fault, but I wonder if any insurance companies offer discounts if you have them...?

We are pretty well snowed in here , but mainly because the tiny muddy lane up to the house is tricky at the best of times, not because of depth of snow, which is around 6 inches so far.

P doesn't believe in salt for environmental reasons either; Mal. So he just goes out & shovels a path, but if that ices over at night, it's dodgy for me with my silly legs.

He's just made two points: 1) around 20 yrs back in Germany, they salted/gritted the roads, but not thge footpaths, which outraged P's father; as an amputee, it's rather unfair on disabled pedestrians.

P considered a small amount of salt between his hut & the main house; so i wouldn't slip, but decided aginst it, since the cats would get it on their paws, lick it off etc.

We don't have State snowploughs here, usually there isn't enough to warrant it; this Winter is exceptional.

The main concern here is that animals get extra feeding if they can't find grass.

zdt

Scotland hasn't ground to a halt.

We have pavement sized snowploughs here in Dundee and the main streets have all been ploughed and gritted (my stupid hill less so, but I've been fine so far)

This was a bit of a contrast with Ayrshire on the west coast, I was down visiting S and it snowed overnight, nothing more than a couple of inches, but it was enough for the trains to be silly and replacement buses to run instead. They hadn't had any snow until I tuned up whereas here in Dundee it has snowed most days since before new year.

mini

We're supposed to get an additional 12" of snow overnight tonight. I'll believe it when I see it. And even then, I won't necessarily be too impressed.

I think we make too much of a fuss here, PC, but we're also ill-equipped because "heavy" snow is rare (less so in Scotland but certainly in most of England.) Motorways and trunkroads tend to be salted/gritted (and ploughed if necessary) but lots of roads aren't and sidewalks are almost never salted/gritted. The little bins we have dotted around are for residents to help themselves to be able to salt/grit front steps, driveways, sidewalks and bits of road that haven't been done.

Topography also has a part to play. My village essentially is on a hill so, if the access roads haven't been cleared, then it is difficult for traffic to get in and out. The nearest town is pretty flat and is served by main roads that get cleared so people can get in/out easily for work and school etc.

I was today when the morning news on tv was extended from 5 mins to 45 mins all because of snow! There was a reporter standing by a road and he put his foot in the snow to show how deep it was (almost up to his knee). Much waffling and then the camera turned to show the road and it was clear; the reason the snow was as deep where he was was because the plough had pushed it all to the sides of the road

The most annoying thing was that a major soccer match was cancelled because of "public safety". The pitch was fine, there was no danger to the players and the match would've been live on free tv so why didn't they just play? We could have watched it in our warm homes and enjoyed it. To take the p*** one of the programmes that replaced the match was another news special about snow!

Sorry if I've ranted but I don't understand why we don't just get on with it.

Hope you have 8ft of snow so you and K can skip work and snuggle.
Van

For reasonably obvious reasons I have nothing at all to say about all this...

Ivan:

8 feet of snow would be a bit of overkill, van. Three feet might warrant a snow day, if not for the insane day I would have when I returned to work...

It's nice that there's grit out there for people to help themselves to. Sidewalks, etc, here aren't necessarily salted/gritted by the Streets and Sanitation Dept. They do some- along park district property, some walks in the downtown area. I assume it's they who do the walks around say, the museums and such, too. Sidewalks in residential streets and in front of businesses are done by the property owners, if at all. The 3" stretch in front of our building is the only patch on our side, except for a vacant building and a crappy apartment block on the opposite end of the block, which is never shoveled or salted.

Related to ice and snow and our front walk never being shoveled or gritted, might I also add that the new coat of paint our landlords had put over the front porch has a glossy sort of finish and is *extremely* slick when wet or covered with snow. What were they thinking when they picked that out?