LOL- "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past".

[Nye Bevan]

Britain's winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.

Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain's culture, as warmer winters - which scientists are attributing to global climate change - produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.

The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and December brought only moderate snowfall in the South-east. It is the continuation of a trend that has been increasingly visible in the past 15 years: in the south of England, for instance, from 1970 to 1995 snow and sleet fell for an average of 3.7 days, while from 1988 to 1995 the average was 0.7 days. London's last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

[ikri]

1. Hence why we're so badly preparred

The snow fall last year was the first significant snowfall for years & this year has been worse. But for 10+ years before that you could generally count the number of days we had snow on one hand.

The councils don't have the equipment to deal with significant snow as they believe that it would be unused more often than not, so we're left with a few gritter trucks for each council who can not grit all the roads or clear them of snow so they try to cover the major roads (not always though, I drove past an ambulance, lights flashing and siren sounding, struggling along the main road to the local hospital on an unploughed and ungritted road doing about 10mph), everything else is left up to home owners.

[T_i_B]

2. I don't think we are prepared for any more then 6 inches of snow

Beyond that we struggle.

Where I am just outside Sheffield we had 19 inches at the beginning of the month. It's all gone now save for lots of crappy black ice. All the same, you'd think it was the beginning of armageddon the way Southerners talk about the snow.