The Weather

Did I say it was cold ?

Last night it dropped to -32f, think yourselves lucky down there in the south lads

PS; My Volvo is off the road for repairs next week and i have to resort to an old Frieghtliner.

It is Sunday morning here and we have had snow for 36 hours so far, it is now 4 ft deep. … and you miss snow Cliff ?

We had about 8" here in Ohio…not that bad really, Just enough to screw up the roads.

Looks like we might be having another white Christmas.

Bully

OK so the snow plough guy never arrived, I checked the snow blower but no gas. Me and our house guest shovelled the stuff for two hours just so we could get a car out of the garage, go to town and get some gas for the blower.

It is now snowing once again. We had a 5ft drift the full length of our 100ft drive.

Yes I do miss the snow!, down here in the South it will be 35 degrees one day and 80 the next!, we do have an occaisonal flurry but it melts as soon as it hits the ground , I have even had it snow on me in Florida, now that was quite mind blowing!

I really do envy you lot up north sometimes, especially when it starts getting close to Christmas, and I have never minded driving in the snow either, done plenty of it…both sides of the pond, but the best time to drive in the snow is doing ‘do-nuts’ in a Ford Capri on a empty car park!

Bully:
Looks like we might be having another white Christmas.

Bully

Oh Shutup!!!

I’m going home to England for Christmas, but I bet they won’t even have a white Christmas either…guess I’m gonna come and live with you Bully!

Cliff Warby:
…snip…but the best time to drive in the snow is doing ‘do-nuts’ in a Ford Capri on a empty car park!

Aint that the truth Cliff… But as you say, I doubt if we will have snow this year, mind you, its pretty cold out there at the moment…(4.33am, what the hell am I doing up!!!)… but then we said that last year and look what happened last january!!..

sometime ago now I lived in the the good old US of A califorina,and the songs not true it does rain in sourthern califorina and the land slids,ex-pat trucker with 20years of trucking in the uk(where did they go).Now down by the sunny med and staying here,all you guy,s in the USA how ya do,ing.

I’ m doing fine Froggy, but I think most of the others are freezing their ‘jewels’ off…63 degrees today, 34 yesterday, 26 last night my truck’s HVAC does’nt know wether it is coming or going full blast heater one minute then A/C the next …here comes the flu!

Cliff, it’s 2f tonight. My truck engine is running 24/7 from now on.

I have to cross through Killington Ski area overnight, one night last week the temp at the top was -9f (-28c)

I HATE WINTER

A bit ‘taters’ is it, Pat?

I just saw three very worried brass monkeys

Hate to tell you this mate, but it was 68 degrees today and humid as hell!..had to run the A/C!

Don,t know about the states but 5 o,clock and i start up the stove.Just come back from filling up the tank, must be going soft with out my cab heater,off to barcelona tomorrow forcast say,s it will be ok.

Very early this morning (dec 11th) I set out to transverse the mountains of Vermont heading east to NH. Ten miles after leaving the yard my ‘low voltage’ buzzer went off, two minutes later everything died. After serveral attempts to fix it I decided to turn back and take a spare truck, the only thing left in the yard was a rickity old frieghtliner so I left my beautiful Volvo VN and drove off in this bucket toward the mountains once more. The weather had warmed up a lot and a thaw had set in so once I got used to the wreck I got a move on to meet my booking time. I sailed up Pico mountain from 3,000ft in Rutland VT to the peak at 4,700ft but forgot about the temp change. Although above freezing down the bottom it was well bellow on top and going down the other side even only doing 40mph the wheels slid everywhere, the melting snow had re- froze and all along rte 4 I was slipping and sliding on every bend.
Now I have contacted the workshop who say my alternator is fixed so it’s change back to my baby and off again. Tonight we are expecting an ‘ICE STORM’ you don’t get them back in Britain.

Not looking forward to going.

Ice Storm!, oh yes I know those things well, although we don’t have ‘snow’ down here very often, we do have ice storms, and those things are not funny, they are down right scary, been caught out in several, but luckily got through them and to the relative saefty of the house, then listen to the pine trees just cracking and snapping in half it is very eerie to hear nothing but cracking trees and branches then the crash as they fall to the ground/house roofs/car roofs/and anything else that may be beneath them.

The worst Ice storm I was caught out in was when I was bobtailing home, we knew it was coming, I had watched the news before I left the yard, the sub-zero frozen band was moving rapidly south from Tennessee, I was on I 285 round Atlanta, they had warned it would be hitting the I 75 /I 285 intersection about 6.00pm. The rain was coming down like cats and dogs, it had been all day, I was watching my outside thermometer on my dashboard, the temp was dropping rapidly 40 degrees went to 33 degrees in about 5 mins, then it got to 32, 31 then 30, by then the rain on my windscreen had truned to ice, the wipers could hardly move, still the temp went down 29, 28 thats when I first lost traction, I was down to 10-15 mph, cars were already sliding out of control all over the place, trucks too, I narrowly missed a jackknifing Werner Truck, I had 15 miles to go, the rain was still coming down mixed with large iced drops, and then a little snow, still I kept going, defying company policy to shut it down (no-way was I going to spend the next three days at a shopping centre or somewhere similar when I was that close to home, I lost count of the cars and trucks that were sliding into each other, off the road, into street lights etc etc, it was so surreal, But I still kept going, knowing full well if I stopped that would be it, I’d never get going again, talk about my bum eating the seat covers!, I got up the two ever so slight hills sideways, managed to avoid three cars on the side that had ran into each other, and still saw other cars coming towards me then continuing into the woods/roadside ditches etc etc, I have never seen so much carnage/crashes in such a short period of time. It helped a little when the snow did start falling, although not much, it was enough to provide a little better traction, I got home safely, it took an hour to do the 15 miles, I still don’t know how I managed it, and with hindsight I think I would park it next time, luckily I was bobtailing, had I had a trailer, I would never have made it, that ice storm lasted 3 days!, we 'lost about 20 of our pine trees, I had cut the ones down that were really close to the house, during the summer. We really don’t get much snow down here, and usually the ice storms down here are just that ICE, but this one dumped a little snow on us, so at least me and the kids got a little fun out of it.

So how would you guys define an ice storm,in comparison to the conditions you met here

An Ice Storm is when it is raining hard, usually for several hours, and the tempreture is usually at least in the low forties, then the temp drops 10-15 degrees to way below freezing in the space of a few minutes whilst it is still raining, it continues to rain despite zub-zero temps, evrything turns to ice literally within seconds, the rain continues, but as it touches an object or the ground it immediately freezes, which is why the pine trees, being evergreens can’t handle the extra weight of the ice and start breaking up, the weight of the ice bends them over double. Eventually the rain itself turns to ice then usually snow, here in the usually warmer south it is the cold front pushing out the Gulf air that causes the temp drop, and usually the cold front pushs the precip out too, but when the cold front overtakes the precip then the ice storms occur.

I’m not a meteorologist but I hope that helps you understand a little.

I had it all explained to me yesterday. I drove to Sudbury MA late afternoon, set out in 6 inches of snow (we had 36 inches but the ploughs were working hard. On the mass pike (I 90) the snow turned to an ice storm. It sets out as snow high up then hits warmer air halfway down before hitting freezing air again closer to ground and starts to re-freeze sometimes hitting the ground and turning to instant ice or sometimes hitting you as hard pellets (Not hail, ICE!). Salting the road does no good, the roads, trees, cables, mirrors, … Everything has a thick coat of ice, the weight of the ice brings down branches, cables and other things.

Look up the movie ‘ICE STORM’ with Sigourney Weaver, it is exactly like that.

Ther is nothing in the UK that can compare with it.

And hence all the signs saying “Bridge ices before road”, which I couldn’t work out for weeks…
Then I worked out that since the bridge had cold air on both sides, and no ground to keep it warm, the bridge surface will be colder, and hence get icey quicker. Not fun I bet.