U. K. Members: How are you folks coping with the weather

I'm more Southern so doing okay, but appreciate the thought.

Hang in there, northern folks.

Quite heavy over the water in Ireland. Normally the bad weather comes from the West but not this time! Four kids at home til next Monday! Still - 2 snowball fights and one snowman isn't bad going.

Here in the south-east, it's as though some one has access to a switch with sunshine on one side and snowstorms on the other, went crazy yesterday and is getting progressively bored with the switching today... it's probably going to remain on 'snowstorms' tomorrow... -_-'

Frigid in Shoreham/Brighton....
Terrible here, but yes, must be even worst up North.

We have a couple of feet of snow on the track to our house (we're in the Peak District), but in an hour it might have blown away and in another hour it might have collected again. The wind has been howling all around the house. We don't have to go out tomorrow, so will probably keep the doors locked tight and ignore what's going on outside. It's so much easier now I no longer have to get my children to school every day, no matter what the weather.

Keep safe, everyone. Don't drive unless you have to. And if you do have to, make sure you have wellies, coats, gloves, torches, and all that stuff. And perhaps a tow rope and shovel, just in case.

AW Admin said:

I keep thinking of the way snow in Irish mythology like the Táin and related texts, and in the Mabinogi, is a sign of something Otherworldly going on.

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The light is certainly strange at times, as the clouds come and go. And of course the albedo of the snow. VERY glad I talked my OH out of trying to get to Dublin for work!

AW Admin said:

I keep thinking of the way snow in Irish mythology like the Táin and related texts, and in the Mabinogi, is a sign of something Otherworldly going on.

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Global warming, perhaps. I'd imagine last years "hurricane" in Ireland was byproduct of it.

Here in Dublin so far we've had a few inches but thankfully we haven't had to go anywhere today.

Thursday and Friday are looking horrible. We are expecting a collision between the "Beast from the east" and Storm Emma coming up from the south, and we are right underneath that fight. Continuous blizzards expected for both days.

Bread supplies are an issue here, but we were thinking of eating one of the cats that come into our garden.

We've even got snow here on the South coast. Just waiting to see if my kids' schools are open today. The snow is much worse elsewhere and it's a red weather warning for Scotland (i.e. threat to life and property). I heard on the news that hundreds of people have been stuck overnight on a motorway in heavy snow and sub zero temperatures. It's supposed to get worse today even down here. Hope everyone in the rest of the UK is bearing up. Please everyone stay safe and don't travel if you don't have to!!

This is global warming. There was this map of the world which showed predicted weather changes, i.e. red dots = will get warmer, blue dots = will get colder. Most of the map was red, but the UK was a vivid shade of blue, like a little blue blob in a sea of red.

I drove from the Yorkshire Dales to balmy Surrey yesterday and I would probably have give it a miss if I had thought that the main roads would be as bad as they were - some of the worst motorway conditions I've driven through. Despite heavy gritting there was a lot of snow on the M1, full of big chunks of ice from the wagons.

It was quite passable (to be fair I was in a Landrover so most things are quite passable), the problem is that drivers of 4x4s seem to think that they are immune to bad weather and hurtle along as if nothing was different. The fact that two tonnes of X5 takes a lot of stopping when there is nothing for the tyres to grip on seems to take them completely by surprise as they pirouette into the central reservation causing a chain reaction of followers to do the same.

Warwickshire was nice and sunny. Shakespeare would have been okay. I had a cat and Mozart for company (not actually Mozart, obviously, some of his music on CDs) so was happy enough, but I was pleased to get home.

ETA - I have just seen that the Met Office has upgraded their weather warning to "red" for SW England and South Wales (link) so pretty hairy for the folk there and in Scotland!

Bacchus said:

It was quite passable (to be fair I was in a Landrover so most things are quite passable), the problem is that drivers of 4x4s seem to think that they are immune to bad weather and hurtle along as if nothing was different. The fact that two tonnes of X5 takes a lot of stopping when there is nothing for the tyres to grip on seems to take them completely by surprise as they pirouette into the central reservation causing a chain reaction of followers to do the same.

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I'm not sure an X5 even is 4WD. Most of these "SUVs" are just taller, wider road cars. They're no more use in bad weather than a Fiesta or a Golf.

onesecondglance said:

I'm not sure an X5 even is 4WD

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You may well be right, never driven one. A good friend of mine has one and she can be quite scary in it.

onesecondglance said:

no more use in bad weather than a Fiesta or a Golf.

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Someone should tell 'em! (c:

onesecondglance said:

... or a Golf.

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Another friend has a golf "country" - a limited edition with the "syncro" 4wd system. He lives in Kent where they seem to get hit quite badly with snow most years, but with winter tyres it makes light work of almost anything, it is an absolutely brilliant vehicle (such a shame that, way ahead of the curve with development, VW decided that there was "no future" in 4wd recreational vehicles...)

Living near the water, we don't usually get a lot of snow - something in the salt air - however, nowhere in Ireland has escaped it this time. My brother has been staying with us for the last week. Was due to go back to London today. Alas, his flight has been cancelled and he can't get another until Saturday.

Sis was in Amsterdam and was supposed to fly in yesterday. but her flight was cancelled. She's hoping to get one of the last flights into Dublin today. We'll see.

It's bloody brassic out there!

Alright, I live in S Wales, which has not yet had anything like the snow and low temperatures of Scotland and the north of England, but it looks like that is about to change. It's St David's Day, too, which usually heralds the start of spring. Eh, no. Brrr!

Here in Dublin there's a proper blizzard outside, not just the odd snow shower.

Meanwhile, here in the new England - we've had another wonderfully warm winter, and a drought for long enough that the Charles River* has dropped about 1 *foot* - a foot for a river.


*technically speaking it's a river, it opens into the sea, but it's a pretty small river.

Spoke too soon about the South coast... near enough the whole of South West England and South Wales now has a red weather warning. Was allowed home early from work today, both kids' schools closed tomorrow, roads a total mess with settled snow and all the salt/grit not working.

It's been snowing almost all day here - now up beyond the doorstep at the back of the house!

This is the sort of weather I was being taught about in my degree 20 years ago - warm air is punching north to the Pole, pushing the normally Arctic air and sea currents away from the mid-northern latitudes. This is just a taster of what it will be like if the Gulf Stream does switch off. I'm in a little village by the M4 and apparently there are SOME cars getting through, but the village shop and the supermarket in the bigger village 3km away both closed early today and goodness knows if they'll open tomorrow.

My FB feed gave me a picture of St David's Day three year ago - it started icy rain, went to sleet and by 2 pm we had enough to build a smallish snowman. Today it's around 6 inches on the ground and about another 3 due overnight! I mean, I'm used to St David's being Winter's Last Gasp but this is crazy!

We've spent the day taping up around all the windows. They're sliding sashes and very well weatherproofed, but the wind is so strong now that it's blowing snow into the rooms around the edges, which isn't good. There's about four feet of snow piled up in front of our outbuildings but almost nothing on the track to the front of the house, because the wind is blowing it all around.

Wow! I heard it was really cold in the UK, but that's insane. Hope it warms up soon, but does so gradually enough there won't be floods as the snow melts.