Snowed in at the pub for New Years'!
What a sad story(not!)

Quote:

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"We've kept our spirits up. It's actually been quite heart-warming."

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I bet it has!!

That is fantastic. Booze AND quizzes for three days. I wish I could have celebrated New Years like that!

Hey! That's what I wanted for Christmas!

Spirits were up...because spirits were being downed.

Can you think of any place you would not like to be snowed in at?

I was trying to find out how much snow had fallen, so followed a few of the links to other weather stories. Especially enjoyed one quite long video clip - ostensibly about bad weather - that only showed people inside a building drinking tea, with the exception of one very brief shot of the parking lot. One would think, if one weren't British, that a story about heavy snowfall would show a little snow

I'm wondering, though - what kind of tires do most people have on their vehicles? My all season radials would get me through most of the snow I read about here, unless the hills were very steep indeed. Do most people just have summer tires?

I don't know how much snow they had at the Tan Hill this time but in February they had 7 foot drifts.

The mountain rescue story is on this page 03-Feb incident.

Those are indeed quite the drifts!

agony, I've lived in Minnesota for 25 of my 31 years. We get a lot of snow here, and I've never owned a set of snow tires. I've always just gotten the "cheapest" tire. lol.

There aren't many hills here, but the highway department covers the roadways in a sand and salt mixture and the roads really never get to the point of impassibility. Some that live in the northeast part of the state, where they have more hills and heavier snow fall will use chains on their tires, in rare instances.

Yeah, I've always done fine in my all-seasons. They usually don't put anything on the highways here, or at least not on the highway I travel on - the busier ones might get sand.

And paper_aero, I live in such a wide open part of the world that I can never really remember drifting being a problem on the highway, so I forgot to consider it. When reading those articles, talking about two to eight inches of snow - well, I would certainly *prefer* not to drive in eight inches of snow, but if it was that or stay in a pub for three days, I'd do it. Unless I had summer tires on steep hills...

All this talk about snow reminds me of a conversation I had with my Dad, who lived out on Vancouver Island (English-like weather there). He was remarking on the snow they'd had and how it had really slowed things down. "How much snow did you get Dad?" I asked teasingly (living in Ontario, much more snow there)"Half an inch?" "Noooo" he replied, "We got almost two inches!" "Never mind," I replied, "the rain will soon wash it away!"

Part of snow is knowing how to drive in it. If you don't get much you don't really learn how to drive in snow. If you live in an area that gets a foot or more as a normal dump, then a few inches is nothing, because you know how to drive differently in snow. So, it's all relative I suppose. Personally? I'm glad to be out of the stuff!

How tragic for the poor revellers ...

In reality the problem is that people are not equipped for snowfall and icy roads, unlike in countries where severe weather is a regular event every winter, and not just a rare day or two of snowfall.

I was recently in Dublin, where snow is a rarity. Two inches of snowfall had the town brought to a standstill. Snow that fell in the daytime and early evening firstly got compacted by the few vehicles that were out, then froze to ice-rink status during the night. Not even the motorway was salted, sanded or gritted. Cars are not kitted with 'winter' tyres or snowchains. In situations like that even one inch of snow is enough to making driving a deadly passtime.