Snow in the UK

[Rye]

Cenotaphin' it up:

Alpha course question answered:

The tree where we keep the local headless horseman:

Some industrial fences between a welding place and a garage:

Some melty snow on that fence:

Frozen milk:

Frozen light:

[Darth Wong]

What are you, a goddamned retard? It is very exceptional for Canada where I live, and the point is that if it did hit 40 degrees here one day, I would not expect people from around the world to be impressed because I know that there's a world outside my driveway.

The bolded is exactly my point.

Did Zac expect people to be impressed, or did he just post this to show the weather is unusual for his location? The fact that he posted a laconic comparison to last year and prefaced his post with "for the south of the UK" tells me he's very much aware that there's a world outside his driveway. In fact, I can't find anything to suggest he tried to "amaze" people with how much snow was falling, except maybe as a relative quantity for the region and time of year, which is demonstrably is.

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners? Around here, whenever anyone from Toronto complains about the cold because it's -15 degrees C during the day, somebody from Manitoba will call him a pussy because it's -35 degrees C in Manitoba, and guess how the guy from Toronto will react: he will say "Oh yeah".

But nooooo, when that happens to one of you, you all get together and a big ol' whine-fest, and complaint that I'm being mean! Unbelievable. Never in my life have I seen someone from around here react this way when someone from Manitoba does to us precisely what I just did to you guys.

[Oscar Wilde]

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners? Around here, whenever anyone from Toronto complains about the cold because it's -15 degrees C during the day, somebody from Manitoba will call him a pussy because it's -35 degrees C in Manitoba, and guess how the guy from Toronto will react: he will say "Oh yeah".

But nooooo, when that happens to one of you, you all get together and a big ol' whine-fest, and complaint that I'm being mean! Unbelievable. Never in my life have I seen someone from around here react this way when someone from Manitoba does to us precisely what I just did to you guys.

Ok, so people from Manitoba want to get into arguments about it being colder there. Fuck them. -15 in Toronto evidently isn't normal, ergo people aren't used to it, therefore it sucks more.

Zac is used to significantly less snow than they have. He's not being a pussy, it's just an extra sucky weather condition that doesn't usually happen.

[Darth Wong]

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners? Around here, whenever anyone from Toronto complains about the cold because it's -15 degrees C during the day, somebody from Manitoba will call him a pussy because it's -35 degrees C in Manitoba, and guess how the guy from Toronto will react: he will say "Oh yeah".

But nooooo, when that happens to one of you, you all get together and a big ol' whine-fest, and complaint that I'm being mean! Unbelievable. Never in my life have I seen someone from around here react this way when someone from Manitoba does to us precisely what I just did to you guys.

Ok, so people from Manitoba want to get into arguments about it being colder there. Fuck them. -15 in Toronto evidently isn't normal, ergo people aren't used to it, therefore it sucks more.

Zac is used to significantly less snow than they have. He's not being a pussy, it's just an extra sucky weather condition that doesn't usually happen.

In case you didn't understand what I was getting at, I'm actually more contemptuous of the whining over the "pussies" remark than I am of anything Zac has done at this point. We take that shit from Manitobans in good cheer, but you guys? Big ol' whine-fest about the mean ol' Canadian. Unbelievable.

[Singular Intellect]

In case you didn't understand what I was getting at, I'm actually more contemptuous of the whining over the "pussies" remark than I am of anything Zac has done at this point. We take that shit from Manitobans in good cheer, but you guys? Big ol' whine-fest about the mean ol' Canadian. Unbelievable.

Yeah, but you're a fellow Canadian, therefore using that naughty word in this context probably put some people into surprised shock. Canadians with their reputation for over the top politeness and all.

Then again, given the experience and reputation of your board, I regress.

[Phantasee]

You kinda are being a jerk about it, DW. Snow is snow. The only difference between a couple inches and a few feet is whether you can build up enough speed to kill a tree or if you can even move it. And for the poor kids who don't get Mother Nature's gift on the regular, they're bound to get a little excited by it.

I wasn't particularly impressed by his photographs, but then, I've been dealing with small mountains of snow over here. A few inches fell, and my truck got stuck, my dad's truck got stuck pulling me out, another truck of ours got stuck pulling him out, and so on, until we had 7 trucks stuck in the snow trying to pull each other out, and it took an eighth truck to pull us all out. When it kept snowing and we ended up with a foot or more of snow, the only trucks getting stuck were the ones with barely any tread left (or the ones with racing slicks on, depending on your perspective). Amusingly, we get better traction on packed snow than we do on concrete and asphalt lightly dusted with snow.

[Bounty]

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners?

Why do you keep seeing whining when there isn't any?

[Bluewolf]

Ahh good to see people calling other people wimps, pussies etc about weather when the said people they are insulting have had not had this scale of weather in over 25 years and therefore I don't know to deal with it (thus stupid shit like panic buying, not knowing how or when to drive on the roads, etc). Then when we are magically commenting on how odd or annoying it is, we are somehow whining.

But then again it's funny to see people get into fights over weather on and internet forum so meh.

[Darth Wong]

I don't know how the fuck you whiny little shits would ever function in an adult workplace, where this kind of butthurt emo whining would just get you labeled as a crybaby. Such a fucking over-sensitive generation of young self-indulgent babies we have here.

[Darth Wong]

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners?

Why do you keep seeing whining when there isn't any?

Have you not noticed all the people whining that I'm being an asshole for calling Zac a pussy, including yourself? That's whining, and you people need to grow thicker skins. Jesus fucking Christ, what a bunch of goddamned babies. Oh boo hoo, I'm such a mean guy because I did something that adults do to each other all the goddamned time around here and usually laugh about?

Hell, I said something very similar many years ago on this same board, and people just laughed it off, instead of doing all this "how dare you say such a mean terrible thing" whining.

[aerius]

Mike's just upset because I got a special massage from his wife, complete with a happy ending. He'll get over it soon enough.


Personally I'm pretty disappointed since we're barely getting any snow here in Toronto, I can still see grass sticking out of some lawns. It's January, we should be buried under half a metre of snow by now. Goddamn global warming.

[salm]

We´re covered in snow here in Germany because it´s been snowing all night and all day long heavily. I had to drive 400 km today but most of the streets are freshly snow plowed and salted. I was able to do 180 on a lot of parts of the autobahn.

[Rye]

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners?

Why do you keep seeing whining when there isn't any?

Have you not noticed all the people whining that I'm being an asshole for calling Zac a pussy, including yourself? That's whining, and you people need to grow thicker skins. Jesus fucking Christ, what a bunch of goddamned babies. Oh boo hoo, I'm such a mean guy because I did something that adults do to each other all the goddamned time around here and usually laugh about?

Hell, I said something very similar many years ago on this same board, and people just laughed it off, instead of doing all this "how dare you say such a mean terrible thing" whining.

Maybe because it's pointlessly confrontational, eye-rollingly insipid macho bullshit? Don't let that stop you, mind. We can learn that Canada is apparently colder than Britain on average, and we can save up our laughter for the summer when unseasonable warmth kills a load of your old people or something, the fucking pussies! Bahahah.

Apparently, we're running out of salt now, plus we're getting close to the record of coldest temperature ever recorded, AND the central heating pipes have frozen somewhere. Awesome. British Gas won't be able to get here for five days, but defrosting the pipes with hot water seems to work in the meantime.

[Zac Naloen]

Why the fuck are you Euros such fucking whiners?

Why do you keep seeing whining when there isn't any?

Have you not noticed all the people whining that I'm being an asshole for calling Zac a pussy, including yourself? That's whining, and you people need to grow thicker skins. Jesus fucking Christ, what a bunch of goddamned babies. Oh boo hoo, I'm such a mean guy because I did something that adults do to each other all the goddamned time around here and usually laugh about?

Hell, I said something very similar many years ago on this same board, and people just laughed it off, instead of doing all this "how dare you say such a mean terrible thing" whining.

You know I haven't bothered to post in this thread because I was ignoring you. But I'm just finding this is just too hilarious because you don't really get what you've done wrong here.

My second post in this thread was me laughing it off, turns out a smiley isn't obvious enough for you though because you immediately went on the offensive. At that point I decided to ignore you, but the damage was already done.

As to why people are calling you an arsehole. Calling me a pussy because the I don't like cold weather is fair enough, you don't mind it. I attempted to respond to your macho posturing with more macho posturing that obviously went wrong.

But can you please explain how "Hey look guys! We've had way more snow than normal and it's causing chaos" which amounts to little more than spreading the news with pictures, which Rye contributing many of himself and "Hmm, I'd rather it didn't get as cold as that" can be considered whining. I've been struggling to even come up with a neutral way to counter it without you accusing that of being whining itself.

It's the accusations of whining that I take issue with, because I really cannot see any from myself

[Vympel]

Hell, I said something very similar many years ago on this same board, and people just laughed it off, instead of doing all this "how dare you say such a mean terrible thing" whining.

Was that when you posted the picture of you sitting out in the snow in a shirt and shorts on a deck chair? Because that was both funny and awesome, I'll remember that one forever

Seriously, I wish I lived in more snowy climes. It's so fucking hot right now, I can't stand it. The coldest it gets here during winter is ... what? 10 degrees on average? I dunno.

[aieeegrunt]

I live on the Bruce and can literally get more snow than that in an hour, so I'm laughing pretty hard at England being essentially shut down by a little snow.

Oh Noes, I don't get snow a lot so it's OK for me to be incapable of reacting to it. What, nobody can reason from first principles any more? The roads are slippery, therefor I adjust my driving accordingly. Problem solved. Except apparently people can't do that in England. Don't give me that crap about it being generations since this happened thus excusing the pussiness exhibited here; I remember a thread almost identical to this one on this very board only a few years ago.

And before somebody cries about how I'm some genetically adapted winterized Canadian Uberschneeman; I grew up in Windsor, Ontario, where the norm is about a week's worth of snow around Christmas that just barely covers the lawn. Which sounds a lot like England. I moved up to the Bruce at the start of winter 10 years ago, and within a week the snow on my lawn was literally higher than the roof of my car.

Did my life end? Was I incapable of functioning? Did I rock in a corner gibbering? No, I applied some gradeschool level understanding of physics to the situation, and went about my business pretty much unaffected.

So was Darth Wong a little harsh and tactless in this thread? Yes he was, but that seems to be his style, so I don't understand the shock and horror people are reacting to his comments with. It's like he flew to England with his legions of flying monkeys and killed all the puppies or something.

I guess the lesson here is that the Germans should have loaded up their bombers with ice cubes instead of bombs during the Battle of Britain.

[Lusankya]

I do imagine, however, that when you moved to Canada, you bought warmer clothes and moved into a house with an improved heating system - options that the people of England don't have when the weather suddenly drops well below local norms. Oh, and while the average driver in Canada might be just as much of a braindead moron as the drivers in England, they at least have been taught how to handle snow, so when you were learning how to drive in the snow, you only had to learn how to deal with the conditions while contending with idiot drivers, and not with drivers who were both idiots and inexperienced.

I've actually had some experience of dealing with heating that was not really adequate for the conditions: turns out that it wasn't anywhere near as pleasant as going somewhere with a colder temperature outside, but an acceptable temperature inside. You're properly tough until you've lived somewhere where the maximum temperature inside your apartment is 1 degree.

[Zac Naloen]

And before somebody cries about how I'm some genetically adapted winterized Canadian Uberschneeman; I grew up in Windsor, Ontario, where the norm is about a week's worth of snow around Christmas that just barely covers the lawn. Which sounds a lot like England. I moved up to the Bruce at the start of winter 10 years ago, and within a week the snow on my lawn was literally higher than the roof of my car.

What do you think would happen if you still lived in Ontario and got the weather Europe has had this week? Even with your super awesome snow driving skills... what about all the other issues that contributed to the chaos?

The problem isn't individual drivers or panicking civilians. Not last week anyway, that was the problem just before Christmas when we had 4 inches of snow fall during rush hour on ungritted and unsalted roads that led to gridlock as workers panicked and rushed to go home. Not wanting to stay in the office overnight.

The people staying at home this last week have actually been following the advice of the government officials that said "Don't travel unless absolutely necessary".

All the real problems are infrastructure related and well beyond the control of the average Briton.

The whole system we have for dealing with wintry weather is designed for those 1 inch snow falls that barely cover the garden at Christmas, with allowances for a little bit of leeway for a couple of extra inches. Chuck another 9 inches on the ground and I promise you, even you with your amazing driving skills but equipped with the same equipment as the average Ontarion would have a hard time of it when public transport gets shut down, the roads become too treacherous to drive on because they aren't being cleared properly and black ice forms and the only way left to get to work is to walk. Not to mention the schools closing, Which means a number of people have to stay at home to care for the kids even if they can get to work. For those with a commute of more than a few miles... I'm not sure how walking is possible in a reasonable time frame. Add all that together and it could actually be the next week or so that ends up being the most trying even without snow. Temperatures aren't going up and supplies of Grit and salt are running low everywhere. This means that roads that are useable now, soon won't be.


Canada in the areas that gets this weather regularly have the required equipment on hand and with plentiful supply for what they normally get. The UK has plentiful supply for what would normally get. This was 9 times in one night of what we would normally get in the entire year. If you can't see how that's going to fuck something up.. you should probably think about it for more than 5 seconds. Canada doesn't deal with the amount of snow it gets using inate powers... it's prepared for it and the spends huge amounts of money on being prepared for it, because it's a yearly even daily event in places. If you are suggesting that the UK apply the kind of yearly budget to clearing wintery weather that Canada does for a 40 year event... can I have some of what you are smoking?

[aerius]

Oh, and while the average driver in Canada might be just as much of a braindead moron as the drivers in England, they at least have been taught how to handle snow, so when you were learning how to drive in the snow, you only had to learn how to deal with the conditions while contending with idiot drivers, and not with drivers who were both idiots and inexperienced.

You'd think so, but no. Driving in snow isn't covered in our driver training programs or licensing requirements, at least not in my part of Canada. You can easily get a full license without ever driving in snow or knowing the theory behind how to do it. And it shows. Whenever we get the first big snowfall of the year there will literally be hundreds accidents within a matter of hours, every single fucking year it happens. You'd think people will learn, but they don't.

[Artemas]

It's like he flew to England with his legions of flying monkeys and killed all the puppies or something.

Dude, they needed those puppies. Now that Old Man Winter has besieged Britain, what are they supposed to eat? It's like 1871 all over again.


Anyway, there are many parts of Canada that are not properly prepared for winter, and probably never will be. Calgary, for example, is susceptible to chinooks, which are warm winds carried by tandem-rotor helicopters that narrowly miss Edmonton. Which is great. Except for the fact that the snow melts, turns into water, then freezes after dark. Making a fuck-ton of ice. Not much can fix this problem, except enough salt to feed all the fat people in America.

And like aerius said, the drivers are still fucking retarded.

[Phantasee]

Calgary, for example, is susceptible to chinooks, which are warm winds carried by tandem-rotor helicopters that narrowly miss Edmonton.

It's refreshing to see a Calgarian talk about the dark side of those lovely chinooks you guys get. All I ever hear is "lol -40C? we've got chinooks".

[aieeegrunt]

Oh, and while the average driver in Canada might be just as much of a braindead moron as the drivers in England, they at least have been taught how to handle snow, so when you were learning how to drive in the snow, you only had to learn how to deal with the conditions while contending with idiot drivers, and not with drivers who were both idiots and inexperienced.

You'd think so, but no. Driving in snow isn't covered in our driver training programs or licensing requirements, at least not in my part of Canada. You can easily get a full license without ever driving in snow or knowing the theory behind how to do it. And it shows. Whenever we get the first big snowfall of the year there will literally be hundreds accidents within a matter of hours, every single fucking year it happens. You'd think people will learn, but they don't.

Nope. The first heavy snowfall we had this year several people were killed on the stretch of highway between Owen Sound and Meaford. My girlfriend drove past one of them on her way to work. By some statistical fluke she's seen a LOT of people die in automobile accidents. I am starting to wonder if the average Westerner is simply too fucking stupid to be trusted with an automobile. Just about every day I see jaw dropping stupidity by my fellow drivers. The flurry of first day deaths, I wonder how many of them are attributable to people not yet being on "winter time", where you leave 20 minutes earlier than the rest of the year, and simply driving far too fast for the weather conditions so they are not late to work?

As far as England and snow prepardness go, well who's fault is that? The town I grew up in usually only really gets enough snow to cover the lawn normally. Maybee once every 7 years or so you get a major winter, but I don't recall Windsor ever being shut down like that as a result. The area where I live is you often get lake affect snow dumping multiple inches all over the back road concessions after the plows have been out for the day. Many times during the winter I'll got to work on clear roads, and be driving through hubcap deep drifts on the way home. Hell our work has cots for people who don't want to chance the drive home for that very reason. I didn't get any specialized training to deal with any this as well as not having magical Canadian winterized genetic material. It was common sense till I actually built up the experience.

[FSTargetDrone]

Ah, anyway... the view from space!



It's from 7 January, 2010.

[Lord Pounder]

Pretty fucking nasty here in Ireland too. Whats worse is due to severe mismanagement of many of the County Councils in the Republic many parts of the motorway system are gritted because the Councils have no money to buy salt.

[Glocksman]

IMHO it all depends, as others have said, on what you're used to.
Down here in the ass end of Indiana, we get brutal summers (90°F+ with high humidity) and fairly severe winters.
Nothing like Toronto or Calgary, but we do get enough severe snowstorms that I really don't care about about storms less than 4 inches (10.16cm) or so.

More than that and I'm reluctant to go out in it before the county road crews have plowed and salted unless I have to.

Though as I said previously, I'd rather deal with 6 inches of snow than an inch of freezing rain.
There are too many assholes around here that seem to believe four wheel drive exempts them from sliding on ice and drive accordingly.
Protip: It does not.