The Weather in England has taken a dramatic turn for the worst. Currently at level 3 Current alert level: Level 3 - Cold Weather Action. One level below level 4 Red — National Emergency.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/cold-weather-alert/#?tab=coldWeatherAlert

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21004656

Currently there is about 10-20 millimeters depth of snow in some parts of
England. Snow flakes have even been observed in London

Hopefully when the National Emergency is declared that folks in England have the good sense to wear some extra thick wooly socks and put a winter coat on and even wear some gloves when risking there lives when venturing outdoors.

When I read this.. "4 inches of snow is almost a national emergency there?".. I'd like them to spend some time in North Dakota or Iowa when we had a winter like 2010...

But then I realized they probably are not used to this, and don't have the equiptment or the plans to deal with this every year... and Ice is Ice.. Doesn't really matter how much you get once it coats the roads and starts snapping the power lines...

This is also like when it reached 83 degrees in Anchorage, Alaska when I was up there in the late '80s. People died because of the heat. Mostly "pioneers" - old folks. Either way, dealing with out-of-the-ordinary weather is always tricky.

I was a little involved in the setting the new warning levels for weather in the UK introduced because people were confused with the old ones. now it looks as if the new system is not understood properly and is getting confused with other incident alerting systems.

WEATHER Alert Levels go:
Green, No Severe Weather
Yellow, Be Aware
Amber, Be Prepared
Red, Take Action

Red as a WEATHER alert is NOT a national emergency, I don't know where that has come from. Please read: Weather Warning Levels

There is another, different system used to inform health care and social services of the possible effects of long durations of COLD so hospital care may be prepared and provision made to look after the old and vulnerable. This involves a mix of temperature and duration to trigger the alerts which trigger the national 'Cold Weather Plan' responses.
UK Cold Weather Plan
Although it is not restricted in any way it is not really for public use, just local government and emergency services.

Global warming....hmmmm.

Thank you, Ian. That's a useful clarification.

10-20 mm of snow is only 1/2-1 inches.

People would barely notice that here. I often don't even bother to shovel such a piddling amount, although I did shovel the porch yesterday of about that amount that came Saturday. Threw out some salt too. The snow becomes ice and gets slippery when it is really cold.

This morning it was 6F - about -14C.

It was close to 50F a few days ago though.

Must not snow much in London.

Reminds me of when I was in London for a study-abroad project in college and they had about an inch of snow near the beginning of our two months there. Everyone was wigging out about it and to the students from my school, it was hilarious because we were from New England where an inch of snow is barely noticed. The people we were working with accused us of bringing it with us... but we said that if that were the case we would have brought a lot more!

It's not only England wigging out about snow. When I came back to NC, the first winter we had a snow storm warning. I won't forget the pic in the newspaper, two guys had a case of beer, 2 packs of Newports and some chips. They were ready. Sorta kinda.

It's all in how you have been raised I guess. DW and I don't notice snow much, except for the fact the loonies around here can't drive in it. They can't drive in rain either. Or clear weather.

Thank goodness that the snow flake didn't make it to the ground in London.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S55RicXuS0o

Although the original link to the BBC report video seems to have had its commentary changed and now longer mentions the subject name of this thread.

"They can't drive in rain either. Or clear weather."
Haha! They must be from Missouri!

London is indeed rather ill prepared for snow, I remember a near total transport shutdown a few years ago due to only a few inches of snow.
Many of our trains are electric and these do not cope well with even modest snow, some use a live third rail to supply current to the train, these are especialy vulnerable.

I would assure those who have not seen it for themselves, that not just one, but dozens of snowflakes landed in central London.

Temperature at present is 2 degrees (centigrade) which is lower than average but not remarkable.
Last night it reached minus 4, again a little below average but not remarkable.

I have however resorted to wearing long underwear, which is not the norm.
Similar temperatures and a little more snow are expected.

This reminds me of a letter I recieved from my daughter in, I think, 2003. She was working as a short-term missionary in Lima, Peru. Lima sits in the world's second driest desert. All the water comes from rivers running from the Andes; never a trace of rain except in winter when some precip comes from a sea fog. On this one occasion, a thunderstorm formed and dropped an inch of rain. There were several drownings because the city had absolutely no way to handle storm run-off. Rain there is as rare as sand-storms in Antarctica.

we have electric trains here, including those with the third rail. they seem to have no trouble coping with snow.

To be strictly accurate I think that it might be ice rather than snow that causes railway problems, though of course snow may turn into ice.

I thought that all conductor rail electric railways were vulnerable to ice or snow, and that the technology was therefore little used in cold regions.

Oh, you wouldn't believe the really odd freaky ways snow and ice can disturb operations of basically anything. Some examples:

- Driving through powdery snow you get a huge cloud of very small and light snow particles. These will acumulate in the weirdest places on the undercarriage of a train, in ventilation slots and basically into any small crack where normal, plain water has no chance of ever coming. (The bodywork is designed so a drop of water will drip off the train, not dribble into cracks. Powdery snow flies everywhere you don't want it). If that doesn't disturb some mechanical operations or short circuit something electrical then the repeated melting and freezing caused by running in and out of (relatively warm) tunnels surely will enable water to short circuit something or ice buildup to disturb whatever mechanical.

- Frost on the cable will impair the connection between the train and cable.

- Any rubber-like material such as gaskets and seals will become brittle in the cold, so they won't work as intended (unless you use the right qualities).

- Any plastic will become brittle and may break (unless you use the proper materials)

- Huge temperature differences between the inside of the train and the outside means that most places in between you'll get plenty of condensation, as water or as frost. Think of how many that have trouble with their car doors when it's cold; a lot of those problems are due to condensation.

- Any door has a rubber gasket that can freeze so the door won't open (prevent with silicone grease!), and any door has a door lock that can freeze.

Robustifying against all and any places where powdery snow, water or condensation can cause trouble can be done, but it is typically fix-this-wait-for-next-problem kind of process. Not really difficult, but it takes time and effort.

Cars seem to have converged on a design that is pretty much robust against the effects of winter(with the exception of door locks for A LOT of car models), but a train has a lot more nooks, crannies and weird places for snow, frost and water to accumulate.

This is one of the joys of keyless entry; if the keyhole gets frozen you can still get in the car.

Maybe.Door can get frozen shut.And windows can get jammed when felt/rubber freezes,I now leave windows cracked open in freezing/wet/dew type weather,works very well.

Agreed,keyless is nice in wet/freeze!

A train caught fire earlier today at London Victoria station, fortunatly without any injuries.
Considerable disruption was caused though as the fire resulted in the evacuation of this busy London terminus in the morning rush hour.

The cause of the fire has not been announced, but I consider that snow ingress that melted is a possibility.
It is an electric train.

A red warning has now been issued which is fairly rare and a little more serious, though hardly TEOTWAWKI.

BBC NEWS

The red warning of severe weather is indeed not a national emergency, as you point out. It is basicly advice from the weather service that severe weather is expected and that action is required, not just pre-planing.
A red warning for bad weather has just been issued, correctly in my view, for parts of Wales.

However in the second document linked to above, the cold weather action plan, they refer to the highest state of alert as being a national emergency. Such conditions have not yet been declared, and probably wont be.

One may see how confusion could occur.

I followed the Met Office advice not to travel without additional warm clothing, blankets, snow shovel, warm drinks and food, snow chains, tow rope, rock salt etc........ I didn't half look a prat on the bus!

Yeah; it's economies of scale. We mostly don't think it's worth spending a lot of money on equipment that'll only be used for 2 or 3 weeks a year, if that. However, these policies are getting reviewed as extreme weather seems to be getting more common. They ran out of grit for the roads a couple of years back, to much public embarrassment.

Now the cold weather is mostly gone and we're getting quite concerned about floods again. We had virtual drought and hosepipe bans in March last year, then rain more or less non-stop since, with lots of floods. Now the accumulated snow is melting, there is going to be more water.

Lots of places don't have equipment for it. Where I live, we had 2 inches come down during rush hour on Friday afternoon. Took me 3 hours to get home - 23 miles. The problem is that it was 28 out, so of course everything just ice'd up. NO, repeat, NO, trucks out salting the roads or anything else. I passed 3 cars in ditches, 2 accidents, and one guy who was blocking the 2 lanes of traffic as he sat perpendicular to it, spinning his tires, trying to get out of the way.

Funny, b/c about 3 years ago we got about 8 inches, and that was handled much better.

Here in Anne Arundel County (USA) there is a similar problem--the state and county can not afford the manpower and equipment to be able to handle the occasional big snows. So they don't. They contract it out.

There are a lot of landscaping companies, farmers, and just guys with trucks with equipment that can be used/adapted for snow removal. So the county sets up contracts with these folks to clear specific roads to specific conditions in specific time frames. The county then only has to keep a check on them.

Landscape companies like it because winter is their slow season and they have equipment sitting around doing nothing. Farmers like it because their tractors etc. are not being used and there is not much for them to do. Guys with trucks like it because it is extra dollars.

Setting up a 4x4 pickup or other truck with a plow is not all that expensive.

For the county, no snow=no cost. For the vendors, snow = $$
So, in the summer, the farmers pray for rain, and in the winter, for snow.

It seems to work for everyone. A fleet of goverment owned and operated equipment does not seem to be necessary to deal with the problem.

They do the same in New Hampshire.

I was visiting my sister there and it was snowing heavily one night. When I awoke early the next morning my sister's large circular driveway was completely clear. I asked her about it and she told me that she also contracts the same guy the county uses for road clearing so he just does her driveway when passing down the road.

Gee, and I thought is was magic.

I've seen both - in Detroit, it's gov. managed. In places like Missouri, seemed to be a mix of city/county/contract. The gov. cleans the highways and main streets, the contracted guys get the parking lots, small side streets, people's drive ways, etc. In Philadelphia, the trash trucks have snow plow attachments and salting buckets bolted to the back end, so they do double duty. No one gets trash picked up that day, but I didn't hear lots of complaints.

Agreed, that it's probably the most cost effective, if you're in an area that doesn't get much.

My vehicle handles the snow/ice darn well,BUT like in many cases,its the 'other guy' who does you in.

That does happen here, although probably on a much smaller scale, and not for clearing airports or rail tracks. Mostly we rely on gritting, which I guess needs different equipment.

Albany NY in the seventies contracted snow plowing out to the same company that did refuse removal, leading to the vision of plow-equipped garbage trucks patrolling the tundra.

New York City puts plows on their garbage trucks.

Even when everything else stops, garbage is still created. So, plow-equipped trucks make sense.

A level 3 weather alert has recently been declared in many parts of the UK due to the very hot weather.
This is declared when daytime temperatures have exceeded, or are reliably forcast to exceed about 30 degrees for at least 2 consecutive days, with nightime temperatures not falling below about 17 degrees during the intervening night. (the exact temperatures vary slightly by region)
The level 3 alert is basicly a warning that actual action is required rather than just pre planning.
Level 4, which is a national emergency has not been declared and probably wont be.

The present weather is nothing remarkable for some places, but is unusually hot by UK standards.
Most UK homes are not air conditioned, and traditionly this has not been needed.
Most large offices and department stores are air conditioned, with very varying degrees of reliability and effectivnes.
Most smaller busines premises are not air conditioned.

One of the more effective responses to hot weather is to change work/activity schedules. Get up early (4 AM or so) and knock off when conditions get too warm. The mid day siesta is a rational response to heat.

What is it they say about mad dogs and Englishmen?

chicago did for many years as well. made a lot of sense for plowing alleys that way.

So does Philly, but this is a necro-post.