The message
from "Bob Hobden" contains these words:

Well we have quite a covering of snow here, they say it's the heaviest for
18 years, and it's about 6 inches thick. As much again is to come over
night
as well.

Lines of green still showing on the newly-planted arable opposite mine.
Maybe an inch has settled, but it's slightly above zero, so it's melting
as fast as it's coming down.

If it had been settling properly we'd have had three inches or more by now.

I've often wondered why modern cars don't seem to cope as well with snow as
the older types and have come to the conclusion it's the modern wide tyres
not cutting down into the muck coupled with the electronic traction control
(which most Handbooks say should be turned off in snow) braking the
spinning
wheels causing sliding. Of course there are also the drivers that have no
idea because it's such an unusual condition hereabouts (Surrey).
I remember, many years ago, driving the Hardknot and Wrynose passes (Lake
District) in heavy snow 4 up in a Morris 1300 (FWD) but I wouldn't dream of
trying it with our present, quite powerful, fat tyred RWD car.

Got from Essex to Ullapool (thence to Stornoway and onward into the
country for Hogmanay) with a fiend in his MkII Ford Concertina many
years ago - snow and ice all the way. Once in the Highlands we chose the
West Coast route because that is usually snow-free, but we had to follow
a snowplough from Tyndrum to Rannoch Moor, where the *&%@! thing turned
round, leaving us facing a three-foot wall of snow. Then, miraculously,
through the swirling snowflakes appeared a vertical halo of light, with
a flashing amber top. This turned out to be another snowplough (from the
next county) and we followed this through Glen Coe and up to Fort
William.

We passed by dozens of cars and vans parked neatly under precipices of
packed snow, and the blower-type snowploughs just sent jets of more snow
to add to the 'cliffs'.

Several cars looked as if they had been unceremoniously ploughed to the
side of the road to let the snowploughs by. Since the road we had
planned on taking would not be cleared - or not coordinated with the
next county's efforts, we wimped-out and took the Great Glen road,
finally losing the worst of the blizzard somewhere round Garve.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
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