Snowman Math

cornflake

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Adding to what OH said -- even in NYC, where we do get blizzards not infrequently, it takes a *ridiculous* amount of snow to actually keep people from going anywhere. Stuff gets shoveled immediately (you can be fined if your sidewalk isn't clear within X hours) and there are just too many people tromping around.

I've gone to work in like 20" of snow -- subway never stopped running, even buses they put chains (eventually buses will get pulled with enough snow but it takes a massive amount), people just go about stuff, markets all open, etc.

The last whopper we had was I think 26"? It will quiet stuff down a lot as its falling, especially at night, but the next morning, everyone is out again and everything is open, pretty much. It's just really hard to stop a major city, too many people and too much stuff (like hospitals will always keep running, so that's a lot of people need to get to work, then those people gotta eat and it's a chain reaction).
 

Bolero

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It takes a lot less snow than that in England to stop people going places - at least outside a major city - because it happens so infrequently all the drivers are no good at driving in it and get stuck very easily. I've never seen a snow plough at work. There can be gritting lorries, but they will only do major roads and there is usually a crisis at some point of the council running out of grit.
Heck, the trains can be stopped by the wrong sort of leaves on the line in Autumn. :)
Overall, very few folks have snow chains or anything like that, and often set out blithely in their car dressed in their office smart work clothes and then when they get stuck its a big old doo dah with their feet getting wet if they get out of the car and them possibly not even having a heavy overcoat because they are travelling in a heated car and parking in a multi-storey car park when they get to work, so why haul a car around.
 

Old Hack

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I live to the west of Sheffield and we usually get quite a lot of snow in the winters. But we live up on the moors, and our house is quite high up. The nearest village to us doesn't get anything like the amount of snow we get up here.

What's really fun is counting all the cars that have come up to our remote location to look at the pretty snow and got themselves well and truly stuck. There are always a few, every snowy weekend.

We have a snow-blower attachment for our tractor, and a snow-plough blade, and a salt spreader attachment. But we're selling them now as we got a much bigger backhoe, which will deal with the snow more effectively AND has a cab on it to keep us warm while we do it. So that's good.
 

Quentin Nokov

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It takes a lot less snow than that in England to stop people going places - at least outside a major city - because it happens so infrequently all the drivers are no good at driving in it and get stuck very easily. I've never seen a snow plough at work. There can be gritting lorries, but they will only do major roads and there is usually a crisis at some point of the council running out of grit.

The same thing happens in the states. People in the north will drive through two feet of snow, several inches of slush, in white-out conditions and it's all in the day of a life of a Buffalonian. Our cars are heavier, we have studded tires and we have salt trucks and snow plows. In the south the cars are lighter, they don't have studded tires, and they have no or very few salt trucks and snowplows. One time my brother was going to a concert in Buffalo and saw a guy crashed in a ditch. The guy was trying to dig himself out. My brother asked if he needed help, he said a friend was coming to help him and added in that he had just moved up from N. Carolina. My brother thought to himself, "Yup, that explains how you got in the ditch."

I remember seeing in the news one time that N. Carolina closed schools for what we would call a dusting of snow. Link.

Setting the story in Scotland would probably be more appropriate, and finding out the locals attitude toward snow would be good too. Anyone who lives in snowy areas: Canada, Wisconsin, Michigan, NY, etc. are desensitized to the snow. It takes a lot of snow to get us to stop.
 
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frimble3

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Quentin Nokov;103060 Anyone who lives in snowy areas: Canada said:
Not all of Canada. Vancouver is one of those places that gets a half-inch of snow and everyone panics. We're trapped! End of the world! OMG, stock up on supplies! It's not being used to snow, (except on the ski hills, where good snow knows to go and stay) combined with a lot of hills.
It doesn't matter if you've come from back East and have driven on snow your whole life, if a Vancouver driver in front of you loses traction, or freaks out, you're not going anywhere.

But even in places that are accustomed to snow (my birthplace, farther north and 140 inches of rain a year (in snow in the winter) mistakes are made. They built a new high-school: 'state of the art' with a flat roof, first winter - two feet of snow and the roof collapsed. And, the paper mill, built back before laminated beams, they built a big, wide roof, in the shape of an 'M', two V-shaped roofs, joined in the middle. Every winter they had to put on a special crew to dig out the snow that settled between the ridges before it collapsed the roof. What were they thinking?
(Probably, "We're in California, it looks good and is economical! What could go wrong?")
 

Orianna2000

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Oddly, my husband is from a part of California where it never snows, and yet, he actually drives better in the snow than most people here, where it snows a couple inches, once or twice a year. I guess he's just good with physics and figuring out what will happen if you hit the brakes on an icy road, as opposed to hitting the gas.

Back on topic, part of the story will take place at the family home of the rich guy, out in the middle of nowhere, where it snows a lot. I'll have to research that to see where it should be. But the majority of it must be in London. And a couple chapters will be in Egypt, just for fun. (No snow in those scenes!)
 

Old Hack

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I'm pretty sure that Sheffield is the snowiest part of England, Orianna. If that's any help at all. If you want a remote country location with lots of winter snow, my house would be a good choice.