I think all you Canucks have to emigrate to London & teach the weather wimps on how to work in freezing weather

A few inches of snow & this country goes to hell in a basket

10 of the 11 underground lines in London were shut down today because of the "Extreme" weather.

31 years ago, when I worked on the Underground, we had what was known as "Sleet Duties". During winter, an extra duty was provided on the night shift at all depots. When it snowed, the sleet crew would go out & run up & down the lines to clear the sleet/snow. We never had any stoppages.

Thinking of back then, I wonder what the generations before me who worked on the trains would have thought of today's wimps?

Dont go there, thats much too depressing

I don't believe it

Andrea has just come back from shopping & told me that she couldn't go to the bank as it was closed due to the weather conditions!!!

Jeebers, the government just bailed them out & the poor little creatures are complaining about the cold.

The met office put out warnings regarding the weather over a week ago & yet there is not one area of this city that has been gritted - Makes one wonder why we are paying taxes

Hello Sirius B, took your suggestion over at the SETI forums to check out the truly Canadian forum.

"Weather wimps" all relates to experience. The same sorts of things happen in Vancouver and Victoria, when they get "real" Canadian winters every ten years or so. From my experience living in Victoria, they at least have the sense to realize they can't handle the snow, so everybody stays home for a few days, till it all melts.

Welcome Rwrwalker, don't hesitate to post on the newcomers' board as well!

Concerning the weather, the driving must get really dangerous out there if snow falls? I guess that would be a reason to "close the city"?

Welcome Bill, glad you could make it. It's a very friendly & lively forum here, so join in. If you like crunching, why not help the team in the POTM's.

Now if we can just entice Lynn over here & also to get her to stop shovelling, maybe the weather here will improve

The driving can be bad, if you aren't prepared for it. That is as much mental preparation as things like snow tires and chains. If you are slow and careful, and plan well ahead, things work out just fine. Apparently in Finland you have to take part of your driver's test on ice (in the winter) or on greased steel sheets (in summer). If you can't control the car, you don't get a licence. In Canada we take a more Darwinian approach, and let natural selection sort out who can and who can't drive in the winter. This also generates lots of work for the body shops.

I learned to drive on the Canadian prairies, with lots of nasty winters. I lived in Victoria from 1976 to 1980, and found I could drive around, slowly, in the worst snow storms there, but there was no point. When you got to wherever you were going, it would probably be closed until the snow melted. Nobody else bothered to get out. It took me a few years to get used to it. It was part of what they call "island time".

OK, I give up. what is POTM?

Oh well, I live in Canada too, and I know a lot about winter myself, but I assumed people in London don't put winter tires on their cars! Maybe rain tires though

POTM = Project of The Month. You can click here to get to the POTM's board.

The biggest problem with Vancouver/Victoria and winter is that they simply don't have the infrastructure to deal with snow. Look at Vancouver during the recent snowy weather - they burned through their entire yearly budget for snow removal in a matter of days. Most years you'll only get a couple of days where snow removal is needed so they only budget for several days worth. During "severe" winters (when you have a few weeks worth of snow) municipalities have to balance snow removal with budget constraints and figure out which people will complain about most - taking the day off (or transit to work) vs paying more money in taxes. People always seem to complain fairly loudly about paying higher taxes so they "compromise" by letting the snow pile up. Besides, who doesn't like having a few "snow days" a year.

As far as driving in it - I've driven all over Canada in winter and Vancouver's wet, slushy snow is far worse for traction than drier prairie snow in my opinion. The worst offender is the fact that the temperature fluctuates on both sides of zero so it "melts" (i.e. becomes slushy) during the afternoon and then freezes during the night so the roads become ice rinks for the morning commute. Add a light dusting of snow into the mix to hide the black ice and watch the traffic pile up! Combine that with the fact that most people can't be bothered to spend the time/money on getting snow tires for a matter of a few weeks of bad weather in the year equates to a marvelous driving experience. Oh, the joy!

All in all my biggest pet peeve with winter drivers is the people in 4x4s who think because they have better traction for moving forward that suddenly equates to better braking abilities too. These jokers tend to cause the most problems on the roads - I remember driving down from a ski hill once in a 4-wheel drive vehicle at ~30km an hour (and yes, this was for at least 50km - ouch...); every single person who passed us (all driving 4-runners/pathfinders/etc) ended up in the ditch. I couldn't help but laugh a little as I passed slowly by...

Yeah we get this in the east too. People think that buying a big SUV exempts them from the laws of physics!

Hey Sirius B -- if you ever get the time, keep an eye on MOST (not all) of the American states - they have the same problem - my son was telling me that in Ohio last week, they actually closed schools because it was too cold .. heating igloos is not all that hard!

It was announced yesterday that the Highways Agency uses 25,000 tons of salt a day, but the mines here only produce 30,000 tons a WEEK! They have had to import it from Gemany & Spain.

All we, the taxpayers can see is that all our taxes are being used for the fatcats holidays, wage increases & golden pensions! I have to travel to Ely on Tuesday (25 miles from home), so I hope the trains will be running ok.

I really do despair about today's society.........I wonder what would happen if another major European war broke out? ...........sorry, we can't fight today, it's too bloody cold!

Now thats cold, even for me.

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"Closes the schools when it goes past -52c!"
Brrr!

Just goes to show that people can get used to anything.

312 hit the nail on the head, infrastructure! lol Costs money to deal with the white stuff.

As for the driving Front Wheel Drive for the win!! I push past 4x4's and SUV's in my wee Honda! lol I use all season tires in combination with snow experience (read that as ditched it a time or two) to zip along in the winter. Gotta know when you can push a little and when to go with the flow.

Have to agree with Pawly: front wheel drive plus a sensible approach will get you through 99.9 % of Canadian town and city winter driving conditions. The trick is realizing when the other 0.1% has happened, and then staying off the roads.

People, in Charlotte... if flurries hit, they close schools. Any accumulation will get a 2-day school closure and many businesses shuttered. You hear "snow" on the radio or telly, be prepared to stand in the queue for an hour at the grocery... b/c everyone else is buying bread, milk, and eggs. We treat it not like winter, but like nuclear winter Everyone panics, and all the networks roll out coverage on how to drive, stay warm, etc etc...

We need to get real down here... lol...

If you don't have the snow clearing equipment, and your drivers are not used to snow, and this is only a few days a year, it sounds like a very sensible apporach to me. Here in London, On we blew our $26 million snow clearance budget for this winter back in mid December, and will be at least twice this by the time spring finally comes in June (or so it seems, sometimes). If we had the option to just stay home for a few days instead, it would probably be cheaper.

That's just it... we have the snow removal stuff, and lots of it. Trucks, bulldozers, salt, sand, slag, deicing agents. Snow varies in the # of days a year we get it, and while it isn't many, it's enough to acknowledge. We get by fine, but we could do better... Closing schools, e.g., when the roads are clear is a bit silly...

Two words.

Teachers Union.

The nice thing about the Teacher's Union is you always know when they're going to go on strike. Just look at the length of their last contract (2-4 years) and wait until the beginning of June in that year. I've known lots of teachers and pretty much all of them can't stand the union and their policies, but are forced out of teachers lounges/etc if they say negative things about the union. Remember when it used to be about what's best for kids? I've heard nothing but contempt for the teachers union from most of the teachers I've known (which is a surprisingly high amount when I think about it...) - in fact, I can't think of a single teacher that I've known that fully supports the union. Then again, I've only known younger teachers who are still idealistic and have no pull in the union anyway...aka the ones who get the short straw for every decision that gets voted on.

Anyway, enough of a mini rant from me....I have no real solutions to the "I need more money"/"fine but you'll have to have larger class sizes, less money for supplies (texts/etc), or higher taxes" debates. The endless cycle of public servants/government employee unions demanding more money resulting in needing higher taxes resulting in demanding more money for "cost of living" expenses resulting in higher taxes and so on will likely continue for as long as I'm alive anyway...

Here we go again......welcome to the Useless Kindergarten.....4" of snow overnight & the country shuts down.....I love it.....

Could be worse.
You could have Hydro tech doing formative training and fracking up big time (basically shut down a entire branch of the electricity network, 200k+ folks without power).
The irony in this is that he was training staff in stuff to never do...

I laughed so hard when I heard about that on the news!