On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:01:39 +0000, rochacha wrote:
There is a science to road salt.
http://www.saltinstitute.org/Uses-be...fety/How-does-
road-salt-work

Interesting! (in a geeky way :-) I'm not sure what they use around here,
but it's presumably something other than salt then, due to the low temps.

Just saw on the news that UK is having a rotten time with snow. The
news reporter said he hasn't seen snow since the 70s. The people hardly
ever see snow in some areas and have nothing to combat the bad weather.

Yeah, it's a mess (I used to live there and still keep in touch with many
people there). I do remember some storms there in the early '80s that gave
us snow a few feet deep, and one time around 2004/2005 where they didn't
get the gritters out early enough and lots of people were stranded on the
roads for many hours, with nothing able to move. I don't think they've
seen anything quite this bad that affects pretty much the whole country at
once for a very long time, though (apparently 1963 was a really bad year).

Nobody over there's really prepared for heavy snow. Nobody (as near-as)
has snow tires or a 4x4, or snow shovels or other clearing equipment, or
knows how to drive in the stuff. The authorities just don't have the level
of equipment or procedures in place to deal with clearing that much snow
from the roads or rail in any reasonable timeframe.

(I like weather extremes, so it's frustrating that they're getting more
snow there than we are up here in MN ;-)

cheers

Jules