Snow!

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 10:29 am

Okay, so I figure to a lot of you guys, snow is a fairly commonplace thing. But I've only ever seen it like twice in my lifetime, and only once like this! It's currently about six inches deep and still falling. It took over three hours to get home from the office, which is but five miles away. Now that I'm over the stress of driving in it, I quite like it.

I'm really, really glad that I bought the new tyre to replace the temporary wheel my car was using... Probably wouldn't have made it home at all if I didn't have a full set of proper tyres...

Now it's 4:30pm... I haven't had lunch yet. Starving....

Will post photos of snow later, maybe...

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 11:23 am

Gah, snow.

You were driving with one of those little half-tires!? Doooon't doooo that!! I'm scared to drive *near* those cars.

Definitely post pictures. ... It was about 75 (f) here yesterday... heh.

Post by **Dray** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 12:44 pm

Up here it's a strange thing /not/ to have that much snow fall every other week by this time! ;_;' We've had one snow-fall and it's already melted away; it's been everywhere from 40-60+ degrees because of warm winds blowing over the mountains!

:3 Apparently it's supposed to snow this weekend, though, which I don't mind because I'll be able to enjoy it from indoors! XDDD

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:23 pm

Got about 8 inches of snow now... and my car is sliding off the driveway, slowly... annoying, but there's nothing I can do about it...

I was driving with a half-tyre yesterday, but I replaced it with a real one yesterday evening. Really glad I did now.

Course if that bloody ambulance on an emergency call hadn't forced me into a ditch on Wednesday night, I wouldn't've been using the temporary wheel at all.... I'm all for saving lives and all, but still...

So... lots of snow... It's stopped for the moment... but it looks all cold. Never seen so much snow before...

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:36 pm

You might want to stick a block or something under the rear tire? Sliding off your drive is... baaaad.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:44 pm

Don't have any blocks... It won't go too far, though, because the road at the bottom of the driveway is flat, and if it's in anybody's way, they'll tell me and then help me move it...

It's a nice thing about this area, I guess... snow is rare enough to be considered something akin to the apocalypse... so everybody's been helping each other. Had complete random strangers helping us get my car unstuck from the snow on the way home, and my partner helped several complete strangers unstick their cars...

Poor next door neighbour is on her own tonight... her husband is stranded in the town he works in ten miles from here. He's staying in the office tonight because it's too dangerous for him to drive home...

Probably sounds rather dramatic to those who're used to snow, but... no one here knows how to cope with it, and our roads are dangerous even on a day with no adverse weather conditions...

Post by **Dray** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:44 pm

If you have any, sprinkle sand or gravel on the icy-bits. XD It really works, and is better for your plant-bits then salt!

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 1:46 pm

All the gravel in the garden is sorta buried... Salt will have to do... We wanted to kill the plants growing through the bricks of the driveway anyway...

Morel · Post by **Morel** » Fri Nov 25, 2005 2:18 pm

Normal winter in Idaho (not this year, couple years ago):
http://www.dansmc.com/tol-eleni/stuff/house_snow1a.jpg

Here's our puppy looking in the back window (keep in mind these windows are five foot of the ground).
http://www.dansmc.com/tol-eleni/stuff/T ... kingIn.jpg

I bet you get heat though wherever you live, Shiolar. X.X I die in anything above 80 (and even there I'm not a happy camper).

Glad you got home safe. Snow can be very dangerous to drive in if you're not use to it! Just remember to take it s l o w.

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:44 pm

That's a lot of snow, Morel... I'd be scared... Eight inches was scary enough. It's just beginning to melt now though... Which means I'll probably have to go to work on Monday.

But we don't really get heat here, though... Last summer we got up to about 30 C (mid-eighties for the Fahrenheit, I think), and that was hot for us... England is in a very temperate zone, and I'm in a coastal area, so weather varies from 5 to 25 C (40 to 75 F) for most of the year, rarely getting hotter or cooler than that.

Anyway, as promised, I have the snow photos. We had to get them off the mobile phones, coz we're not in the habit of keeping a camera in the car...

This was an hour into the journey, still in the town itself. Lots of cars got stuck in snow trying to get up this hill. Don't let the angle confuse you... driver's side is on the right in England, and we drive on the left hand side...

Still trying to get out of the town... One of the rare moments when the traffic was moving fast... There was a big gap between us and the queue ahead... we got delayed by a big old Volvo getting stuck, and it was too heavy to get moving easily...

About half a mile from home in this one... the traffic had mostly cleared, but we were still moving slowly... My car slipped a lot on this stretch of road, and my brakes were having trouble... apparently ABS brakes don't like the cold much...

Some trees covered in snow. I like this picture. Very picturesque. I've never seen snow on trees like that...

After three hours of driving, we got home. This is what the back garden looked like. It got disturbed right after taking that picture, because I had to rescue my poor rabbits. They were practically buried under all the snow. They didn't seem to mind... they're okay now.

Post by **Dray** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:49 pm

Dude, big fluffy wet snow! XD That stuff is fun to play in!

>.>" I think that when you're driving in snow, tapping the breaks is much more effective then trying to hold 'em down. Don't quote me on this, since I've only heard about it from others! (Not that you're probably going to be driving in a lot of it after this! XD)

Fun pictures!

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:55 pm

We keep getting little flurrys (and no, not the a Ryslen Flurry!) or it melts too quick. Minneosta hasn't been the best for snow in the past years. Last year we were lucky. We have itty-bitty patches in our yard but they're not even worth counting. And I'm in Minnesota, darnit! Oh well, I'm sure it will be thrown at us in a huge bulk when we least expect it...lol

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:57 pm

lol - all I'm thinking is, "driving in the snow that's not very familiar, with a cellphone, taking pictures..."

I'd have just pulled over. But then I'd never have gotten home... Brrr.

It did get really nice over thursday (thanksgiving for us) but then immediately turned quite chilly for sunny San Diego. It's breezing very chilly right now, all overcast and it rained overnight. Welcome to winter in the southwest...

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 1:04 pm

Well, I wasn't the only one in the car... although I did take some pictures with my phone, when we were stopped...

And I did finally learn to just tap the brakes rather than hold them down... after two and a half hours... Fortunately I wasn't skidding much anyway... new tyres on a new car rock... new car also means extensive heating inside, and I drive a Volvo myself, which means HEATED SEATS! Whoot!

We normally only get little flurries of it, if that much... this was totally unexpected... well apart from the fact that the weathermen were predicting it this time last week.... But nobody believed them, because whenever they say there's going to be snow, they never mean OUR part of the country.

We were just sorta sat there in work saying "You know, I don't think it's gonna stop. Lets go ask the boss to let us go home..." Only after half the staff got messages from friends in the orbiting villages to say 'get home now before it gets any worse' did our boss actually listen...

Morel · Post by **Morel** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 2:35 pm

Tapping brakes does help. Slowing way down helps more I've found. My dad said to tell you throw a 50lbs bag of sand in the back of your car. More weightin the back will help traction and if you do get stuck, throw some of the sand under your tires to help get you out.
Though I hope for your sake that the snow goes away before it gets worse

That picture of the snow on the trees is beautiful. I love it when snow does that. Seeing that, and the mountains, is what keeps me up here.
Would love to see England, though. I would take a trip there, but I can't even get up enough to go to Seattle (six or so hours away), let alone farther

Shiolar · Post by **Shiolar** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 3:00 pm

Couldn't have got any slower than I was driving... Never got over 5mph the whole journey. The thing I found though was that sometimes if you stop you don't get moving again...

Not a lot of point in getting any sand, aside from the fact that it's at least two miles to the nearest place that might have any... The snow's melting already, so it'll prolly be gone by Monday... But thank you for the advice... I shall bear it in mind next time snow is predicted...

Yakima · Post by **Yakima** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:56 pm

What'da I say? And it's still coming down - not as hard but driving in it is no fun because it takes me forever to get anywhere! Yeah, MN's winter greeting...

My car last night (I went out looking for my check card (didn't find it anyway) and took it.)

Took this this morning - before I scraped my car windows (breaking a tooth-thing on my scraper), and snapped off my whiper blade - thus I didn't have windshield whipers all the way to town...got a new one though, so all's better!

Hey, at least I don't have to worry about neigbors walling us in with snow this year! They guys at the appartment did my first year in school and I ended up climbing through the kitchen window to get out. *facepam*

Anyway, that's MN right now...It was worse yesterday because it rained, iced, then snowed...

Kesava · Post by **Kesava** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:25 pm

Morel wrote:My dad said to tell you throw a 50lbs bag of sand in the back of your car. More weightin the back will help traction and if you do get stuck, throw some of the sand under your tires to help get you out.

*snickers* I'm sorry, but I couldn't help but laugh at that. Good advice, great advice, in fact, it's just that my dad throws two railway ties in the back of his truck, along with at least five bags of sands, each totaling, minimum, 30 lbs.

Ahh, winter in Saskatchewan.

Astra · Post by **Astra** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:04 am

Funny, it's been blizzarding everywhere in Colorado EXCEPT for where I am. *looks out window* It's cold, but the grass is still green as far as I can tell. And those trees over there still have leaves. I'd blame global warming but that doesn't explain the four feet in the next town over!

Morel · Post by **Morel** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 1:04 pm

Snow just started falling last night. I got up this morning and could barely see our truck in the back (good thing we don't need to drive it this year). I don't expect it to stop until at least tonight, probably tomorrow.

On the good side, I didn't have to go to that stupid class

Astra: lol! The snow/storm misses us like that every now and then too. Most of the time though it's the reverse. The news tells us we'll only get a light sprinkling of snow and in town they only get an inch, but here we get a good couple feet.

The Nexus

Snow!

Snow!

MN's Turn...