6 inches of snow today: London grinds to a halt...

[DamonHD]

So I get an extra day at home with the family / office!  (And lose a day's pay.)

I swept the snow off my ground-based off-grid PV and they are loving the extra reflected light and are keeping my earth.org.uk server off-grid most of the time.  My existing roof-mounted (and 15cm-deep-snow-covered) grid-tie isn't generating even a single Watt!

I also freed up my little MotorWind:

http://gallery.hd.org/_c/natural-science/_more2009/_more02/snow-heavy-several-inches-overnight-at-st



art-of-February-2009-in-suburban-Kingston-London-England-42-DHD.jpg.html

Not that there's much wind today.

We're due another dump of snow later.

Rgds

Damon

[Capt Slog]

Snowing now in Nottingham.  Luckily it came early enough to keep a lot of people off the roads (or they left home a lot earlier) and things haven't been bad at all on the roads.

People in the UK are always staggered that the whole thing does grind to a halt witha bit of snow, but it never surprises me that it does.  The road system here seems to run on a knife edge with massive number of cars using overcrowded roads.

I didn't check my PV this morning, perhaps I should have gone and swept the snow off it.

I hope this doesn't set you back too far Damon.

.

[DamonHD]

Hopefully only one day's delay, and everyone has just been fine with that including my client in London from whom I'll now take a different day off...

Assuming it's not icy tomorrow preventing the scaffolding going up, nor blizzards thereafter stopping the installers getting on the roof!

Yes, sweep your PV if you can.  It's amazing that my 1.3kWp on the roof (unswept) is getting 0W whereas my 80Wp of swept off-grid panels are making 10W.  The stuff on the roof should be making 100W (and it really does usually work in proportion like that).  Well, not that amazing I suppose, but seeing it with my own eyes should help me remember!

Rgds

Damon

[DamonHD]

Poo!

Install put back to next week given installers don't want to work on an icy roof or some reason!  B^>

Rgds

Damon

[zap]

It's good to see nature is using parts of the UK to keep "Global warming" in check!  At least the air conditioning bills will be slight for a few months to come.

[dnix71]

Melting snow means river water later. The Thames needs flushing anyway.

This global warming is man's fault is malarky. The sun is quiet now, so the climate is cooler. Next two years are supposed to be busy, so enjoy the cool weather while you can.

http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/tilmari/tilmari5.htm

[DamonHD]

Ah, unfortunately heating is generally the issue here, and if the warm air from the Atlantic is interrupted by AGW we'll get a whole load more of this 'fun'!

Rgds

Damon

[DamonHD]

This end of the UK has no glaciers, so melting snow means more river water pretty soon!

BTW, the Thames is doing quite well these days!

Rgds

Damon

[spinningmagnets]

Interesting read, London frozen, 1680's...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs

I also recall the initial Viking expansion was the result of a birth rate explosion due to a great thaw and a sudden abundance of food. Large temp cycle swings long before industrialization...

[richhagen]

We've had lots of snow here in Chicago this winter.  At first I would climb up on the roof and clean off the panels after each snow.  I gave up on that after the first 5 or 6 times and as such saw only a few Watts from the tops of those panels mounted on steep angles.  I finaly unburied them all a few days back, and actually saw about 3 KWh on Monday.  It has been a snowy, dreary winter weatherwise so far here, but I am looking forward to sunny days ahead as the days slowly lengthen here.  

I thought about you when I heard on the news in the morning here that London had virtually ground to a halt after 4 (four) inches of snow.  I had to laugh at that a bit, as we would have been shut down here so many times if that amount shut us down.  Of course, because we get hit more often, they have the equipment to clean the streets quickly here and start on it as soon as it starts snowing.  There was a Mayor who got thrown out of office because he didn't get the streets cleaned up quickly enough after a storm, (Google Bilandic in 79) so they take their snow removal pretty seriously here.  I am sure the guys in Buffalo, NY, still laugh at us when we grind to a halt after a paltry 18 inches of snow too though.  Rich

[DamonHD]

Indeed.

You can be quite sure that London taxpayers would bitch and moan if we kept in place the resources (salt, grit, gritters, whatever) to deal with this level of event better.

One London borough used 25% of its annual stock in a few hours for example.

Anyhow, I'm on a (halved) train service into London right now, and expect to get into work OK, albeit wearing hiking boots with my pinstripe suit!

Rgds

Damon

[DamonHD]

...and will continue to be, I imagine, though from a different base temperature for the next few hundred years...

Rgds

Damon

[adaml]

Damon,

"You can be quite sure that London taxpayers would bitch and moan if we kept in place the resources (salt, grit, gritters, whatever) to deal with this level of event better."

Agree, work in highways a bit north of London, this is part of my job.  How do you justify the cost to the taxpayer of the expensive equipment you would need to deal with these "uncommon" events?  Trouble is if you paid for it you would be shot down in flames for extravagance with public money then when you don't you get all the stick for not having gritted properly.  Stuck between a rock (salt) and a hard place I think!!

Good luck to you getting about London.

[DamonHD]

My hiking boots, some patience and an extra 30 minutes were all that I needed this morning.

Tomorrow morning some lucky soul may get to witness my 'dancing on ice' skills as all the residue will have frozen solid overnight.  Maybe I should sew some sequins onto my coat now?  B^>

Rgds

Damon

[dnix71]

Not being ready for this may be a blessing. It only takes a year or two of driving over salted roads to ruin a new car.

[electrondady1]

here in Canada it all seems like a bit of a hoot

'cause you can get 6" of snow an hour in a real dump

you need a light touch on the gas and brakes.

try not to spin your tires .

a hand full of kitty litter in front or behind the tires can give you enough traction to get going.

you can get unstuck by rocking the car forward and back .

good luck!!