Winter weather - Beast from the East

joe2008

Pross wrote:

joe2008 wrote:

Found it...

"It's alright, the weather warning doesn't apply to me I've got a 4x4"

To be fair to them I believe it was parked in the lane by their house

crescent

Update: Wheels arrived this morning. Everyone can now stand down.

orraloon

joe2008 wrote:

Found it...

Drat. If that had been up last night then definite candidate for the BB caption competition.

awavey

briantrumpet wrote:

I get poked off with people moaning about how we grind to a halt when it snows in the south. Of course we do, as no-one wants to pay to have snow ploughs sitting round for 10 years doing absolutely nothing instead of having a couple of days of inconvenience once in a while.

but snow ploughs dont strike me as particularly sophisticated bits of equipment, its a shaped metal scoop, you fit it to the front of your gritter lorries, and away you go, is it really that awkward or expensive to store a metal scoop even if its only used once every five years ? really it doesnt have to be that high tech, it shifts snow, it doesnt have to be able to post messages to facebook or anything

bendertherobot

awavey wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

I get poked off with people moaning about how we grind to a halt when it snows in the south. Of course we do, as no-one wants to pay to have snow ploughs sitting round for 10 years doing absolutely nothing instead of having a couple of days of inconvenience once in a while.

but snow ploughs dont strike me as particularly sophisticated bits of equipment, its a shaped metal scoop, you fit it to the front of your gritter lorries, and away you go, is it really that awkward or expensive to store a metal scoop even if its only used once every five years ? really it doesnt have to be that high tech, it shifts snow, it doesnt have to be able to post messages to facebook or anything

They've lost that one, for now. Thing is, it's about fleet sizes, even a decent size fleet of those with ploughs attached (they do have them) takes a while to clear the whole network.

There's an epic tweet from someone in Canada about what it costs them.

https://twitter.com/JudithFlanders/stat ... 4396039168

briantrumpet

Meanwhile on the south coast of Devon, the sea has been remodelling the A379... I think that might take a little longer to reinstate than the roads blocked by snow...



(Image from https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-ne ... ss-1295121)

briantrumpet

bendertherobot wrote:

awavey wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

I get poked off with people moaning about how we grind to a halt when it snows in the south. Of course we do, as no-one wants to pay to have snow ploughs sitting round for 10 years doing absolutely nothing instead of having a couple of days of inconvenience once in a while.

but snow ploughs dont strike me as particularly sophisticated bits of equipment, its a shaped metal scoop, you fit it to the front of your gritter lorries, and away you go, is it really that awkward or expensive to store a metal scoop even if its only used once every five years ? really it doesnt have to be that high tech, it shifts snow, it doesnt have to be able to post messages to facebook or anything

They've lost that one, for now. Thing is, it's about fleet sizes, even a decent size fleet of those with ploughs attached (they do have them) takes a while to clear the whole network.

There's an epic tweet from someone in Canada about what it costs them.

https://twitter.com/JudithFlanders/stat ... 4396039168

Here's an interesting statistic: the whole of Russia has only 41 times (208,000 miles) the total mileage of roads of Devon (8000). And Devon has more than Belgium.

Pross

briantrumpet wrote:

Meanwhile on the south coast of Devon, the sea has been remodelling the A379... I think that might take a little longer to reinstate than the roads blocked by snow...



(Image from https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-ne ... ss-1295121)

Is that the causeway at Slapton?

briantrumpet

Pross wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

Meanwhile on the south coast of Devon, the sea has been remodelling the A379... I think that might take a little longer to reinstate than the roads blocked by snow...



(Image from https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-ne ... ss-1295121)

Is that the causeway at Slapton?

Yep.

bendertherobot

The gritters do, it seems, all have ploughs anyway (round by us).

pblakeney

^^^^
I'm confused. Wouldn't they shovel the snow into the opposite lane?

briantrumpet

PBlakeney wrote:

^^^^
I'm confused. Wouldn't they shovel the snow into the opposite lane?

My guess is that they've been set at that angle just for parking, to leave the walkway clear there.

pblakeney

briantrumpet wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

^^^^
I'm confused. Wouldn't they shovel the snow into the opposite lane?

My guess is that they've been set at that angle just for parking, to leave the walkway clear there.

I thought they'd just been bought without proper research.

briantrumpet

briantrumpet wrote:

Pross wrote:

briantrumpet wrote:

Meanwhile on the south coast of Devon, the sea has been remodelling the A379... I think that might take a little longer to reinstate than the roads blocked by snow...



(Image from https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-ne ... ss-1295121)

Is that the causeway at Slapton?

Yep.

A nice bit of drone footage showing the extent of the damage, and just how crazy the raod was in the first place. I guess the good news is that it looks like for the time being it'll be accessible by cyclists, though I guess that might change when they start work to reinstate it (assuming that they do).

https://www.newsflare.com//video/187210 ... n-in-devon

Pross

briantrumpet wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

^^^^
I'm confused. Wouldn't they shovel the snow into the opposite lane?

My guess is that they've been set at that angle just for parking, to leave the walkway clear there.

Or they'd been doing the fast land of a dual carriageway / motorway.

bendertherobot

It's coming back

lostboysaint

bendertherobot wrote:

It's coming back

Yeah, heard that on the radio this morning. They're hedging their bets as to quite how bad it's going to be. I've just ordered my new 4x4, I'm going to be prepared!

shirley_basso

BTR - any more details?

bendertherobot

Shirley Basso wrote:

BTR - any more details?

Atlantic always goes to sleep a little in March/April so that means getting it in is a bit easier. It doesn't look as windy as before so it's a nagging breeze rather than massive - figure windchill. It will start dry, then showers will make their way into the East, there's no storm like Emma to interact with so West won't see huge falls. Longer days, more sun will make it more tolerable.

Length indeterminate at the moment

Jez mon

bendertherobot wrote:

Shirley Basso wrote:

BTR - any more details?

Atlantic always goes to sleep a little in March/April so that means getting it in is a bit easier. It doesn't look as windy as before so it's a nagging breeze rather than massive - figure windchill. It will start dry, then showers will make their way into the East, there's no storm like Emma to interact with so West won't see huge falls. Longer days, more sun will make it more tolerable.

Length indeterminate at the moment

Will it be fine flying into Chambery on Saturday is the big question!

bendertherobot

Jez mon wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

Shirley Basso wrote:

BTR - any more details?

Atlantic always goes to sleep a little in March/April so that means getting it in is a bit easier. It doesn't look as windy as before so it's a nagging breeze rather than massive - figure windchill. It will start dry, then showers will make their way into the East, there's no storm like Emma to interact with so West won't see huge falls. Longer days, more sun will make it more tolerable.

Length indeterminate at the moment

Will it be fine flying into Chambery on Saturday is the big question!

Bit wet, should be ok. Flying into Chambery is generally ok, as long as you accept you may not land there.

Pross

We can shift the Winter Paralympics here then, they've got temperatures of 20 degrees causing problems over there!

thegreatdivide

We have two models running at the moment re this. It’s not going to be a patch on the last one and right now it looks like it’ll go one of two ways – into the UK or curve down through the East of the Lowlands and into France. The latter would be good (but not for Jez). Still way too early to give a definitive though.

We were tracking the original Beast three weeks before the media and feeling very smug about it.

Jez mon

bendertherobot wrote:

Jez mon wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

Shirley Basso wrote:

BTR - any more details?

Atlantic always goes to sleep a little in March/April so that means getting it in is a bit easier. It doesn't look as windy as before so it's a nagging breeze rather than massive - figure windchill. It will start dry, then showers will make their way into the East, there's no storm like Emma to interact with so West won't see huge falls. Longer days, more sun will make it more tolerable.

Length indeterminate at the moment

Will it be fine flying into Chambery on Saturday is the big question!

Bit wet, should be ok. Flying into Chambery is generally ok, as long as you accept you may not land there.

Haha, wet is OK, so long as it's falling as Snow up in the hills!

Looking at the long term forecast, it seems my tactic of a late skiing holiday to get a nice goggle tan is failing once again though! On the upside, maybe some nice powder!

bendertherobot

Powder a cert I'd imagine. We had maybe 2 good days out of 6 thought in terms of sun. One day cancelled cos of wind.

briantrumpet

thegreatdivide wrote:

We have two models running at the moment re this. It’s not going to be a patch on the last one and right now it looks like it’ll go one of two ways – into the UK or curve down through the East of the Lowlands and into France. The latter would be good (but not for Jez). Still way too early to give a definitive though.

We were tracking the original Beast three weeks before the media and feeling very smug about it.

I get cheesed off about the regular moaning about weather forecasts, especially about the Met Office. From my POV it's not the big headline events that prove the general awesomeness of the ability to predict stuff with an amazing degree of accuracy (given the chaotic/complex nature of weather & weather systems) - it's the day-to-day mundane stuff, in, well, meh/average weather (temperatures/windspeeds/general precipitation) that is rarely way out, and very often spot-on, pretty much to the hour. It's just that most people don't notice all the 'boring' stuff, and only care about it when they've got their village fête on, and the cream teas get rained on. If you've tried to plan stuff in France by relying on Météo France, with their lack of local variation & detailed models, you'll know where I'm coming from.

If you've ever spoken to anyone working at the Met Office, you'll know it's mostly a job they love and are really engaged in. My only criticism is that I wish they'd publish for every forecast the % degree of confidence they have in each forecast: it would alert the public to the fact that, even with the constant updating of the forecast using hugely complex modelling and data-crunching, that it's still an uncertain outcome to some degree, and that all forecasts are just 'best guesses' based on past events. They'll never be perfect.

Jez mon

thegreatdivide wrote:

We have two models running at the moment re this. It’s not going to be a patch on the last one and right now it looks like it’ll go one of two ways – into the UK or curve down through the East of the Lowlands and into France. The latter would be good (but not for Jez). Still way too early to give a definitive though.

We were tracking the original Beast three weeks before the media and feeling very smug about it.

Living in Buxton, we were hit pretty dramatically by the "Beast" last time about, trains completely cancelled for 2 days and pretty dodgy for 4 days, as well as the main roads being impassable.

There's a Facebook page run by a few weather nerds in Buxton who follow the various models, always quite interesting, and particularly useful when my other half needs to know whether to drive to work or stay in!

Pituophis

briantrumpet wrote:

thegreatdivide wrote:

We have two models running at the moment re this. It’s not going to be a patch on the last one and right now it looks like it’ll go one of two ways – into the UK or curve down through the East of the Lowlands and into France. The latter would be good (but not for Jez). Still way too early to give a definitive though.

We were tracking the original Beast three weeks before the media and feeling very smug about it.

I get cheesed off about the regular moaning about weather forecasts, especially about the Met Office. From my POV it's not the big headline events that prove the general awesomeness of the ability to predict stuff with an amazing degree of accuracy (given the chaotic/complex nature of weather & weather systems) - it's the day-to-day mundane stuff, in, well, meh/average weather (temperatures/windspeeds/general precipitation) that is rarely way out, and very often spot-on, pretty much to the hour. It's just that most people don't notice all the 'boring' stuff, and only care about it when they've got their village fête on, and the cream teas get rained on. If you've tried to plan stuff in France by relying on Météo France, with their lack of local variation & detailed models, you'll know where I'm coming from.

If you've ever spoken to anyone working at the Met Office, you'll know it's mostly a job they love and are really engaged in. My only criticism is that I wish they'd publish for every forecast the % degree of confidence they have in each forecast: it would alert the public to the fact that, even with the constant updating of the forecast using hugely complex modelling and data-crunching, that it's still an uncertain outcome to some degree, and that all forecasts are just 'best guesses' based on past events. They'll never be perfect.

It's not the met office that are at fault, I agree. It's the sensationalist reporting by the collective media that makes a mockery of the predictions.
Everything is; "hurricane conditions" (rain and a bit windy), "Beast from the East" (an inch of snow in winter), "worst drought on record" (two weeks of sun shine in August.) People then just automatically assume that the met office don't know what they're on about. :roll:

Pross

Snow forecast in Newport on Sunday which is the day my half marathon has been moved to after being postponed in the previous snow. That said, the forecast is variable at the moment so hopefully it will hold off, should get a tailwind in the second half of the race too which will be welcome.

bendertherobot

Pross wrote:

Snow forecast in Newport on Sunday which is the day my half marathon has been moved to after being postponed in the previous snow. That said, the forecast is variable at the moment so hopefully it will hold off, should get a tailwind in the second half of the race too which will be welcome.

Betty Pharoah road race too. Should be light snow, if anything. Bitter though