To tell everyone to calm the fuck down?

[MumboJumboo]

This is all the snow where I live and everyone’s got their knickers in a twist! Talks of possible school closures and one of the departments in my husbands work have been told to take Friday off because of the “adverse weather” 😂😂😂

Btw is NerrSnerr around?

(About 8 inches here and still falling, actually.)

How do other countries manage? They spend a lot of taxes. Winter tyres are a legal requirement, as is a hell of a lot more grit (and its storage) than our local authorities will pay for. Shops are legally required to make their outside areas safe

Yes - all of this.

And we also have 5 snow days built into our school calendar, so that the schools can close when it would be dangerous to travel. Usually we use all 5 days. So far this year we've used 6.

And when the snow is bad, we're advised not to travel.

People dont learn either.

In the winter of 2013 during those storms the Somerset Levels flooded People there were up in arms about it, having a go at Cameron.

The map still turned blue at the 2015 election though.

On the BBC weather website they've got this map that shows all the snow. If you type in your post code it puts a little marker on the map. Then you move the time pointer along and it shows the movements of the snow hour by hour.

I just did it and although we've got heavy snow all around us from around noon tomorrow until about 6pm - our little part of the world immediately surrounding where our postcode marker is, is virtually clear. According to that map it's skirting around us completely. We are a little snow free oasis in a sea of snow it seems.

Not sure I believe that, but we shall see.

It's completely snow free at the moment and none due here until about 7am tomorrow and then only a light dusting through the morning.

For anyone who hasn't done the map thing - you just type in your postcode on the home page and then it takes you to another page with your local weather icons etc. The map is at the bottom of the page, and there's a little button you click for full screen and it hides all the icons etc. and that's when you can get a proper view.

www.bbc.co.uk/weather

On red alert in Scotland. Most definitely not overreacting. Roads impassable, we are housebound for at least another day. We almost got stuck trying to get to a medical appointment this morning, passed loads of abandoned cars.

Shame it doesn't deter more people from trying to travel, it's putting a real strain on emergency resources.

Boss worked from home yesterday and sent an email round telling people who drove in to get away in good time. At the time we got the email at 3pm, not a single flake had settled. Some of my colleagues started panicking and sorting laptops to take home as they rushed out of the office. Later that evening about 8pm still only a dusting had settled.

I grew up 150 miles north of where I am now and genuinely it's shocking to me how panicky people are here. What I don't understand is it was much worse over Xmas or whenever the last bit of snow was, and everything seemed fine. The only difference this time is the media pressure which I guess has affected everyone.

Red zone here.

We now have 18 inches of snow lying.
Housebound. Our local roads are closed. Everything shut. I;m not particularly rural either- 6 miles from Edinburgh.
OH has closed work, all shops closed, nothing moving.

No buses, no trains, all flights cancelled here.

Awful again where I am - more snow and it's drifting.
My school, along with many others is closed today.

My dad drives HGV's and they have gone out with two drivers in each truck instead of one so that they don't run out of driving time and and up stranded just hoping the are all ok today!

Yes, OP, you've had little snow.
Let us know how you do today and tomorrow, will you?

Since the day it started snowing during the afternoon in London with no time or road space for gritting, that I'd rather be with the panicky people. Underground closed from the point it went overground and a 2 h walk in empty iced streets to get home.
These days I'd rather stay home if possible.

There is a foot of snow in my garden, my gate wont open as its frozen and its still snowing :(

Last night I checked the forecast and saw we were due to get light snow from 9-12 and that it would warm up in the afternoon. I planned to shop before work, leave the shopping in the car and then I'd be able to drive home when I finish at 3.

Woke at 6 to find it snowing heavily and settling. Checked the forecast again and it said light snow all morning followed by heavy snow until 5 pm, so that rather put the kybosh on that plan!

Luckily, the organisation I work for would rather people work from home than struggle in and we have all the kit we need to do that, so that's what I'm doing, and I suspect all my colleagues will do the same.

I was surprised to see how bad it was, we've only got a yellow warning. It's a triple though - snow, ice and wind!

Woke up to light snow here (exactly as forecast) with a very clear forecast (90%) for heavier snow from 1.00pm, due to continue into the evening and overnight. Hoping DS's school have the sense to close. Now if I took a myopically local view I could say "well, what's the problem? I can wrap both of us up warm and get DS to school then walk to work." But of course there's no guarantee that the teachers all live within walking distance and I know I have colleagues who live along way away the other side of high moorland.

Contrary to Helena's post above, I wonder if some of the "you're panicking unnecessarily" posts are actually due to good contingency planning - this has been forecast a long way in advance, leading to some people going "well it hasn't happened" to which of course the answer is "yet.. we told you Thursday."

Just a light dusting here, all schools closed due to the forecast of heavy snow from lunch time through to tonight. I live close to a main road and everything’s moving fine.

A friend sent me this last night

This is the road to our village it’s under about 4ft of snow so we are all totally snowed in

Not sure when they will get round to clearing it as NE been hit bad so they concentrating on the main roads at the moment

essex area here and its worse today than yesterday, we always seem to get it bad. not been out in the car since monday although i did manage a walk in it yesterday , wont today.

We have a Finnish house guest. We tried to warn him how things would be but he didn’t believe us.

His face last night when there was no snow at that point and announcement school would be shut today
His face when he heard School was also shut Friday

No roads possible to where I work. Friend's husband has just gone out to rescue an ambulance with his tractor

I have a close friend whose DH is Swiss and every year he jokes about how we can't cope with a little snow here. Because of course in Switzerland they cope every year. I'll have to ask him what he makes of what we're coping with here. I'm in West Yorkshire and we have a LOT of snow, and my DDs' school is closed for a second day in a row.

Its awful here and worse at work. They closed there before 6am. As for trains being cancelled perhaps the drivers cant get in from whereever they commute from? Maybe they are snowed in? That was certainly why we had cancellations. There werent enough temp staff aroubd to hire

My friend is from Canada. She was asking where are snow chains? Where are the plows when she came over. Once she realised there were none she realised why the roads are so bad...

PilatesSuck but that's Canada.

Winters are long and very predictable. We can go years in the UK with no snow.
Buying snow chains that we may use 3 days in 5 years is overkill. Snow ploughs- the same argument. Huge expensive machines that would sit idle for months or years idling in a yard.

I really don't think the comparison to Canada is fair.

It's the sporadic and infrequent nature of the snow that catches us out- and it's not worth the capital expenditure on equipment and infrasructure to justify that.