Winter 2014 set to be 'coldest for century' Britain faces ARCTIC FREEZE in just weeks

a reply to: snowspirit

It is indeed wet snow that we get here. That's why I use a plastic helmet rather than a beanie hat! I used to just have a beanie hat, made of some wool blend or other, but if one goes out in a full blizzard in one of those, the heat from ones head melts the snow which adheres to the surface of the hat, which then ends up seeping down onto the top of ones skull. Freezing cold water, directly to the noggin. Bleh!

That's why there is just as much focus on keeping dry, as there is on keeping warm, in my wardrobe for that time of year. It has to be said, we do not always get the snows down this end, bearing in mind the fact that I live on the edge of the Thames Estuary. We do not always get the harshest snows either. But when we do get a blizzard, a really cold, really fast moving blizzard, it hits us like a freight train, mostly because we are not as used to it down here as folk up in Scotland are, or indeed as used to it as folk in Canada are!

It gridlocks our end of town totally. Its actually funny watching people trying to move their cars in the slippery conditions! They never get very far until the gritters have been out on the roads, and they usually do our end of town last.

a reply to: johnb

The Mail and Express drive me nuts with their endless, faulty predictions. Last weekend one of them was giving it the 'OMFG' routine and telling its readers that last week would be sub-zero temperatures followed by some lengthy national freeze. Totally made-up and more proof that being a tabloid journalist is as easy as 1-2-3.

It's like a parallel universe where their readers live an England that's 99% Muslim AND 99% criminal underclass and buried under perpetual snow.

Good God, this is just part of the latest trend to try to scare the crap out of everyone. They have been doing this in the U.S. for years now. The weather doom is just one of the latest.

Ask yourself how many times you read stuff like this and it turned out to be true. The odds are, yes, sometimes they are correct, but certainly no better than a coin toss. The fringe weather people get the media ear, and they take off with it because, basically it sells content.

I really hope you have a good winter over there, but don't succumb to media hype that has no footing in science.

I cant wait for the "mini ice age" threads! Last winter was extremely mild ,not a drop of snow around my area

Kinda get's me thinking of the upcoming Energy crisis with the EU's False Flag between Russia and Ukraine.

And with our criminal energy companies rising their prices again?! My electricity bill in North East Scotland has doubled in the last couple of months.

All this bad weather talk could be part of the rip off the people by the Energy companies scam again!

a reply to: TrueBrit

All good advice, and I always dress for the weather conditions, always have done and fashion be damned!

It always amazes me though when I am out and about in freezing conditions to see young people dressed completely inappropriately, and some older people too for that matter. I guess though when heading to the club for a night of drinking and dancing, sensible clothes just don't cut it. Spikey high heels and the shortest possible skirts are still in abundance, and the guys still need to wear just a T-shirt to show off their latest tattoos and show how tough they are.


All well and good while the alcohol fueled bravado is in play, but the A&E departments up and down the country tend to become a little bit overloaded with dumb people (more so than a usual Friday or Saturday night).

My car has 4 wheel drive and even then I keep my speed down and let speed drop off before lightly touching the brakes, but still have people overtaking dangerously and hitting the brakes like it was a normal dry road. I have almost been taken out a few times in bad conditions by other drivers acting like complete idiots. So much so that I tend to work from home if the weather is bad rather than drive to the office. Sure, I can drive safely enough, but risk getting pranged by others unwilling to change their driving style, or just plain stupid.
I also keep dry food and water in the boot all winter, plus warm clothing, walking boots and wellies, and a couple of blankets, just in case. Simple measures of preparedness, but so many people just don't even think about such things.

a reply to: Britguy

I agree entirely.

There is nothing as funny as walking past a nightclub at midnight, on a frozen winters night, to see people milling about in inappropriate clothing for the weather conditions. And by funny, I mean potentially Darwinian in its stupidity.

My favourite moment of stupidity however, goes to the driver of a Ford Escort, the old rally spec one from the late eighties or early nineties... the famous one. As you are probably aware, being a rally spec car, these are more powerful than their standard counterparts, and have better grip and handling.

I was walking past a golf course near my place, very late at night during a heavy blizzard, all bundled up as described, when further up the road, I spied this vehicle. Its exhaust was churning out hot gas to the point where its tail lights were a diffuse glow, rather than a pair of clear, red points, and its engine was revving like mad. It was however, going no where, and as I approached closer to the vehicle, it became clear that its wheels were just spinning, and spinning, and no grip was to be found.

At this time I had never driven any kind of car, let alone a performance machine, but even I knew that the car was revving too hard, and the wheels spinning far too fast, to attain grip on the icy surface. Having continued to close on the vehicle, I was able to discern its make and model, and was aghast at the fact that whomever was driving it, clearly had their foot buried, slammed down on the accelerator pedal. If it had gained traction at any time during this massive overpowered attempt at pulling away, it would have shot off and impacted either someones parked car, the fence and tree line of the golf course, or perhaps shot through someones damned living room.

It turned out that the vehicle was moving, just very slowly, inch by slippery inch. Now, you might be thinking that the person behind the wheel is an idiot at this point, and surely, they were. However, the clincher, the icing on the cake, as it were, was that this person spied me as I overtook him on foot , and upon doing so, took both hands off the wheel, turned his head to look flat at me, and shrugged while throwing up both his hands as if to say "I don't know, I am out of ideas!". If he had gained grip while doing that, it would have been total carnage.

I have to say, that I have a few ideas.

First of all, do not buy a car that you cannot drive. Its a damned rally spec Ford Escort, designed for complicated driving situations. If you cannot make a car which is designed for rally driving, pull away from the curb and make progress down the street faster than walking pace in icy conditions, without burning the engine out and burying your foot so far into the throttle than you touch the pavement, then you should not be driving at all! Blithering halfwit!

Second, even as a non driver, I was aware that the wheels need to be turning SLOWLY in order to achieve traction in slippery conditions, otherwise they move too fast for them to be able to actually obtain any kind of grip. You need to tease the car away from the curb, and accelerate very, very slowly in order to maintain a stable level of grip, in order to make progress in those conditions. Trying to peel off as if the road were totally unmolested by snow and ice, is a fools game.

Its idiots like that, which make me prefer to walk in snowy weather anyway. At least on foot I am somewhat less likely to share space on the road for an extended period with idiots like him!

a reply to: TrueBrit

If I had a penny for every time I'd seen similar situations, I'd have about .....errrrrrr....ummmmm.......£3.64 by now, or thereabouts!

It does give me a chuckle sometimes though. Politely stopped to let a BMW 6 Series Coupe pull out of a side road, only to sit there giggling as he did the same as the Escort driver. Sat spinning the wheels - rear wheel drive of course and skinny low profile performance tyres - and going nowhere! What use a £60K+ car then?
You then get the Chelsea Tractor types, big 4x4 wearing 19" or 20" alloys with rubber band profile tyres, sliding around all over the place and wondering why their 4 wheel drive didn't stop them ending up in a ditch.

It all comes down to common sense really, which is sadly lacking these days. I have a TV programme saved on my PC, a Countryfile special they did a couple of years ago about the 1963-64 winter. Now that was a BAD one, very severe in fact, but people seemed to cope a lot better back then. I think if that happened again, we'd see mass death and whining, rather than common sense, self reliance and personal responsibility.

Yes stick to higher gears as much as possible to reduce slipping, although as a kid i thought it was great fun to go somewhere safe (huge carpark) and you could be up to 3rd and 60mph standing still before it bit sometimes lol

Now i tend to stay off the main roads when it snows due to the complete inability of most people here (sth england) to drive in snow/ice. Stick to the fresh snow as its not packed down and dont go out if you dont need to in bad conditions.

That said I doubt we'll get a bad one too - although like everything its bound to happen sometime so if they print every year they will get it right eventually

Might even get a wettest winter headline prediction in a few weeks lol

originally posted by: ArmyOfNobunaga
a reply to: johnb

How are UK meteorologists so good? Where I'm from they can't predict rain in the nxt 24 hours.

i thought if you were in the UK any forecast that says it will rain within the next 24 hours has a 100 percent probability of being correct evn if made by an inebriated hedgehog.

a reply to: johnb

It is getting colder, a lot colder a lot quicker than normal and with a few full moons already the temps have dropped.

My old bones can certainly feel it and I worry how the really older folks will cope and the homeless this winter...and it will be cold, colder than anyone can imagine this time round (the price we pay for such a long hot summer).

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: ArmyOfNobunaga
a reply to: johnb

How are UK meteorologists so good? Where I'm from they can't predict rain in the nxt 24 hours.

i thought if you were in the UK any forecast that says it will rain within the next 24 hours has a 100 percent probability of being correct evn if made by an inebriated hedgehog.

The UK really isn't that wet on the global scale. London gets less rain each year than New York, Rome or Dallas, for instance.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Oh...oh pretty please with a cherry on top, can we PLEASE have weather reports delivered by drunken hedgehogs!?

That would be marvellous fun! Imagine that, not only would the hedgehog be talking, but slurring as well!

The rain beats heavily against my window tonight. I hope that each droplets sound against the ground, is the swift and graceful approach of Lady Winter, for it has been too long since I felt her embrace.

I could easily be reading a recycled article from any of the the past... 10 years.

I hear this every year... I'll believe it's a bad winter when we are through the worst of it and can say

"Yeah, that was pretty bad"

We get some harsh winters here in the UK. But we need to buck up - other countries get it far worst and deal with it 10x better. We are a joke.

originally posted by: stormbringer1701

originally posted by: ArmyOfNobunaga
a reply to: johnb

How are UK meteorologists so good? Where I'm from they can't predict rain in the nxt 24 hours.

i thought if you were in the UK any forecast that says it will rain within the next 24 hours has a 100 percent probability of being correct evn if made by an inebriated hedgehog.

www.badumtss.net...

originally posted by: tinkortwim
Hmm. Britain was an evil country for many years. Still is to some degree.

God's wrath is a winter of hell... again.



I'm laughing my ass off as I prayed for it to happen last year as well as this one.

Sue me.

I'm sure the king and queen can help it's citizens. SHE'S good for it. SHe helped them out in the past. I'm sure the king and queen can fork out that problem easy. RIGHT? NO WORRIES there,Not at alll. I'm sure they will all sleep soundly in a warm room.

a reply to: tinkortwim

If God was to show his wrath to a nation whose "native" population are significantly genetically influenced by Viking invasion of the land upon which they live in times past, you would have thought he would do it by fire, not by Frost.

I believe in God, but I also believe that God is intellectually capable of assessing the strengths of those who might fall beneath his wrathful gaze, with a little more sense than you assume.

Honestly, the idiocy of some zealots never ceases to amuse me.

bus broke down and I'm in 10 years old walked 5 kilometers was -52 C and wind, the birds fell frozen to death and the people worked and many children went to school at below -25 could not go always a few students came and classes were held even for 2 students in the class have fun in the cold youtu.be... -50 - 58 Chupa Chups do cucumber in vodka , break a moist towel and hammer nails banana and gnawing champagne

Here near Vancouver canada, the geese look confused to me. Thry keep flying past in the typical V formations,but going different directions, like weeks ago they were migrating, came back, then took off again.

Well it is looking more like we could get that cold snap:

link

Every chart is showing the same cold anomaly suggesting the UK and Northern Europe will be in for a shocker this winter and with the waters between Canada and Greenland showing warmer than normal this would also explain the why so much snow fell in the US in November, breaking all previous records...
According to the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, North America snow cover reached a record extent for mid-November (15.35 million square kilometers), crushing the old record from 1985 by over 2 million square kilometers. Records at Rutgers date to 1966.