I used to feel embarrassed that my
state is so bad at handling snow days.
Apparently, London also sees snow fairly
seldom, and is just as crippled by 6 inches
of the white stuff as my area…
Also, is that the worst reporting ever?
“It is like the Blitz, without the death
and destruction.” Wowzers.
Its more a matter of how much a place is set up to handle.
I see ice as the worst. Even if the streets are salted it still does lots of damage to nature and power lines.
But if there aren’t enough snow plows and salt trucks …
Obama’s daughters were surprised that their school in DC closed because of weather that wouldn’t have raised an eye brow back in Chicago.
I know. I lived in MD for a year, and they were
actually able to handle it. Here in NC, we don’t
get enough snow to make it cost effective to
keep salt and snowplows around all the time.
Except for the facts that none of the buses were running, there were major tube delays/train cancellations and none of the sidewalks had been salted, it was kind of nice out. A perfect skiing morning, actually. The wind picked up a bit in the afternoon.
It took me double the usual amount of time to get to work, though, and then I discovered when I got there that everything was shutting down and I could go home.
Still, at least I got some good pics. More and/or bigger pics are on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/avamil/
One sound byte I heard on BBC world service
this morning was a guy who was stuck at
Heathrow. He was just back from a Swiss
holiday, so he had his skis. He said he’ll
probably just ski on home…
That’s the part I found weird. When weather gets rough in the winter here in Chicago its the buses, subways, and commuter trains that everyone turns to.
No matter how bad it gets, the buses run both ways every ten minutes on my street.
A few years ago it got down to 20 below zero fahrenheit for too long of a while and the train tracks started to buckle, but normally anything on a track is the way to go in the winter here.
I love the snowman with the traffic cone hat.
It was the “Sever Delays” on the Central Line that bothered me.
The South of England hasn’t had weather like this for a while. The North and Midlands had something of the kind in the mid eighties, but I don’t think it hit London. The last time I saw it like this was in Norn Iron in 1963.
Many years ago, I lived in the sunny, southern US state of Georgia, near Columbus, where it might snow once every 20 years or so.
When it did snow, there, apparently all hell broke loose!
Snowplow? What’s a snowplow?
A lovely city!
Spokane doesn’t have commuter trains or subways, but last December when we had 22" of snow in 36 hours, the bus system was only running 3 or 4 routes, because the streets weren’t plowed. We are much further north than Chicago, about the same latitude as the UP of Michigan, but the way this city acts when it snows you’d think we were in Key West! I forget how many miles of streets the city is responsible for, over a thousand I think, and here’s what we have for snow removal
City Equipment Used For Snow and Ice Removal:
The City has a total of 36 plows for use, 8 of which can sand at the same time and 8 of which can de-ice at the same time. Additional sander trucks and 5 de-icer trucks are available. The combination of equipment in use depends on the conditions at the time.
There are still major ice berms along side most streets, including the major arterials. Since the ice is now covered with dirt and is dark, it’s a real adventure to travel in the right-hand lane of most roads because you never know when the two lanes of travel is going to turn into one-and-one-half lanes.
I want summer.
My son lives in Denver and he tells me they usually don’t plow the roads there. He tells me they might spread some sand at the cross streets.
I was there only once during the winter when it snowed eight inches. By noon the next day 1/2 of it was gone and one of his neighbors was out shoveling in his shirt sleeves.
The part I found strange was its so dry there that the snow seemed to evaporate rather than just melt. There were no puddles or run off on the street.
The people who live up in the front range drive into town and stay at a motel if they’re predicting an amount of snow on a week day night however.
I saw on the news tonight that London could get another 6 inches in the next 24 hours. Hang in there.
While we up here look at this with bemusement, it does make sense when you hear that London don’t have many gritters or snowploughs, because there’s never enough snow to require buying them.
So when they do get a bit of the white stuff the whole place grinds to a halt.
I was quite disappointed, all we had was a few flurries that didn’t lie and it’s just been raining since. It’s been the coldest winter for a decade but up here it’s generally been pretty dry with it, so we’ve had hardly any snow 
From one frozen commonwealth to another – stay warm!
Cincinnati is getting dumped on again - it just took me 2 hours (what is usually a 30 minute drive) to get home…
At the moment, at about 1830 hrs EST, the temperature in southern New England is about -5 C, with virtually no wind.
It’s been snowing lightly for most of the day, with a “dry” accumulation of about 15 cm.
All in all, a pleasant little snow!
Your buses run on time? What street do you live on? I could never trust the Peterson bus (184) back when I took it. But that’s year round; snow doesn’t seem to do much to them. You’re right that CTA is the way to go in this kinda weather.
I know I’m quoting myself, and I know I shouldn’t be surprised by what I’m about to say, but Boris Johnson is a lying git. He said they didn’t have enough gritters and snowploughs in London yet I’ve since seen 2 news stories saying London has more gritters than the whole of Scotland. That’s a lot of gritters for one city.
Isn’t the population of Metro London nearly 3x that of Scotland (13 mil vs. 5 mil)? I suppose they could have more gritters (what we’d call road sanders or sanding trucks), and still have a few as 40% of Scotland’s per capita.
