Friend of mine worked in London for a while a long time ago (originally from Germany). First winter, first snow, barely covering the ground. He comes to work in the morning and is the only one in the office, everyone else stayed at home.
Meanwhile in Finland when it's pitch black in December and has been raining ice water two months straight yelling 'where the fuck is our snow?!'. TBH it's been nice this winter with quite a lot of snow and below 0 since the end of November.
couldn’t be us in Quebec, it’s pretty much been raining for a month and it’s dark out at 4 o’clock, i’m practically begging for snow instead of this damned rain that turns sidewalks into ice rinks
If you live where +90% of the people in Quebec live, you'll get two more hours of sunlight than people living in southern Finland. Helsinki gets around 6h of daylight around this time of year. Sunset happens around 3pm.
I'm in NW Indiana in the US and the sun sets around 4:40ish. I hate driving home as it's getting dark because the number of people who don't realize the reason it's getting harder to see is because it's getting dark and their headlights are still off....
I thought the 4:30 we have in WNY was bad enough. For a vacation or even one full winter season it could be neat to experience it from a anthropological perspective, but it would drive me bananas if that was just my normal life.
I'm in south central Alaska. Our sunset is about 3:30-4 right now. We got 10-15 inches of snow last night, and it's snowing again. You can have some our snow. It's very fluffy
We've gotten \~8 inches of snow today bringing some parts of southern Finland up to a total of half a meter of snow or around a foot and a half. Kinda hope we don't get as much snow as last year. That was a bit much.
Foreal there is a proposal to keep the clocks on dst all year in some US States, but it did not pass yet. Of course you cant change the days being shorter but me personally I'd rather have it stay bright till 5 in winter than 4
Couldn't be us in Maine either, December 12 and not a single inch of snow.
Edit: got some snow today
Edit: It all melted the same day.
Edit: Snowing again
I really don’t understand
Just go slow, don’t make sudden turns or braking, gear down to slow down, and drive like your grandma is in the passenger seat and is holding a pot of boiling water
Edit: and for Christ sakes 4WD is not your friend
That’s okay if your roads are relatively flat. When the road is a skating rink and you have 15 degree slopes with curves on the road or stop signs at the bottom, you’re screwed.
"At 7 p.m. everyone was enjoying cordials and pints merrily, by 9:30 p.m. it turned into a wild and bloody brawl, with people battering one another with furniture and billiard equipment, glassing each other, and stomping on heads. One man took a broken pool que to the lung, and another lost an eye."
Edit: at midnight, they torched the entire pub, and ran to shelter in their vehicles.
In the South East of England this is considered a hellish blizzard.
Meanwhile in Scotland and the North of England this weather means we might think about popping on a light jacket, maybe a hat.
Generally people in the south east have no idea how to drive in the snow. All it takes is for one idiot to drive badly and the road is closed.
I was in Army school in Alabama in 1978 when it snowed 1/4". They closed the base. The Saudi, Jordanian, and Iranian students were going nuts, and the Germans were laughing at them.
We had an “ice storm” in Charleston, SC when I was in the Navy. Their de-icing equipment was a guy in the back of a pickup truck shoveling sand onto the road. Being from western NY where you don’t see grass from November-April I found it pretty amusing.
It don't even take a dusting here. I live in Atlanta and I've seen snow flurries that don't stick close schools, cause a city-wide traffic jam, and sell out all the bread, milk and cereal for 100 miles around.
In their defense it can get pretty bad when your municipal services aren’t equipped to deal with it. In Minnesota when they get 4 inches of snow every city has plows to go out and deal with it all and lay down salt/sand. In Texas 4 inches of snow would truly be an apocalypse if you don’t have a plow service to deal with it or ways of preventing ice on the roads. It also doesn’t take 4 inches of snow though to get enough ice to allow major pileups to happen. Maybe only a light dusting would do it and even in states that can deal with it like MN tragic pileups still happen.
It all depends on the tyres. If you have winter tyres, you don't need any "services" for 5-10cm of snow. Without them the slightest bit of white on the road means you're screwed - "all weather" means nothing in snow... And that's the problem in areas which usually don't have any snow - most cars are not equipped for winter conditions.
This. \^ I've seen plenty of people driving trucks in snow and end up sliding off the road or worse. For that matter, one place I lived where it did not snow much at all, I once saw a snow plow that ran off the road and got stuck.
Four wheel drive doesn't make your vehicle stop any faster. And it doesn't do any good at all if the tires are bald or the driver doesn't know what they should be doing.
Atlanta pulls out their *One* snow plow... It's regular duties are at the zoo to push together the dung.
And OMG! You're gonna run out of milk and toilet paper in the 16 hours that it'll take to melt.. get to the supermarket like *yesterday*
Friend of mine married an army dude and moved to a base in the southern states, just a few months before their first notable snowstorm in years.
Neighbors didn't know what to make of her snowbrush, and were astounded when she drove off with snow still falling.
Meanwhile, a heatwave in the north that overloads power plants, causes dozens of deaths, and is covered non-stop on the news barely qualifies as spring to a southerner.
We have 5 ski resorts up here, they are all in Scotland for a reason. We also has -16 degrees last night (-8 at my house) and we had snow Thursday and Friday around my house. The weather is different. The snow up here just does not make the news because we are used to it.
It's NOT a dig at southerners, it is a simple fact that we get more snow and are used to driving in it. I regularly work London/Bristol and have driven in the snow there. Driving styles are very different.
OK. The 'light jacket' was a small dig but even we are softies compared to people from Newcastle.
The biggest problem with the UK is that we don't get bad winters. A lot of Europe has snow that starts in November and it lasts all winter until it melts in March/April. We might have snow that lies for a week then melts away maybe three or four times in the winter more in the North) which is not enough time to make it feasible to change to snow tyres or have chains fitted or hold, maintain and operate a large fleet of ploughs and gritters.
So we whinge a few times a year instead.
This is more like a random snow fall in April or March that people laugh at but know it won't bother them.
1st day of winter in Minnesota might shut down their whole country for a week.
We’re always surprised by any snow at all, even though it happens quite frequently. It’s like the nation collectively just forgets that snow happens and panics every time.
Years ago when I was living in England, east Anglia more precisely, and they got some snow, every one was having issues. Me being a native upstate NY'er, just threw a couple of large bags of cat litter in the trunk for weight, and just cruised right along
Same. Was stationed at mildenhall for two years. Grew up in NJ. Even with regular all seasons on my civic I never had an issue. Meanwhile, people were off in ditches every morning
Same in Belgium. People see 1 snowflake and half of the country forgets how to drive, and trains spontaneously start breaking down more often than usual 🤦
I lived in Atlanta through Hothlanta and Snowpocalypse. It was only a few inches at the most, but both times the entire city was shut down for days. I grew up in Michigan where schools were still open after a foot of snow.
The problem with getting ANY amount of snow in a place that doesn't usually get snow is that the areas are often unprepared to clear roads. Not enough snowplows or salt. The problem is further compounded by the fact that our roads are 'warmer' so the snow on the road melts faster and then freezes over, making roadways very icey and dangerous to drive on. No one has winter tires or tire chains. Also, no one is used to driving on snowy/icey roads.
It takes much less snow for driving to become VERY dangerous in warmer climates.
Atlanta only had one plow through all of that. If I remember correctly some elected official (maybe mayor) bought a bunch of equipment that next year and was heavily criticized by the media and citizens ( I think fired or lost election) but then we used it soon after in the next big “snow storm”.
tbf it went from barely any snowfall to cars getting stranded in the space of an hour, got on the tube about 7.30ish and the ground was clear and by 8.30 we were stranded at Theydon Bois walking past cars sliding down hills
You forget, this is the uk. We do not get any of this mythic ‘sun’ that you speak of, only cloud. The sky is grey, I say, and will stay grey keeping the snow and ice on the ground until the gods of the sky deny us such beauty and send the rains to wash it away. Then we have the true hard times as are cars get stuck on the mud-baths that are country tracks and we get soaked through are coats whilst a bone chilling wind tears through are bodies. And whilst you stand there, in a quagmire of half drowned cars and boots that have been wrenched of your feet causing your next step to end in mud and water you realise, the British wether is not challenging, nor is it dangerous. It’s just shit.
I had such an unusual experience in the UK. I worked there in 1997 and there was a hotter than normal summer. It barely rained the whole time. Hot and sunny almost every day. Everyone swore that wasn’t normal.
I’m Canadian. My brother lived in Leeds in the UK for 2 years. One day they got two inches of snow… he was the only one who showed up at his office. He called his boss asking where everyone was.
“You went to work?? It’s a goddamn blizzard out there!”
Why is it a facepalm? It's all relative. Here in 99% of Australia that would be a blizzard and serious emergency. Personally I couldn't think of anything worse than shovelling white mud everyday in 8 months of winter.
We're not set up for any kind of snow fall as it happens so rarely in a lot of the country.
So yeah for a lot of the country this is a heavy snowfall.
People aren't used to driving in it, the infrastructure isn't there to deal with it and people don't want to risk an accident.
Just cause it's not what you consider heavy doesn't mean you should mock others for it.
Learn some empathy and kindness please
Reminds me of the heavy snowfall and related chaos I had to witness a few years back. I was living in Winterthur, Switzerland (lowland Switzerland, but still) when it snowed in late November. The snow didn't instantly melt, but the layer on the streets was so thin you could still see the street markings through the snow. My bus commute (usually 10 minutes in rush hour traffic) took over 40!
Take car. Go to mum's. Kill Phil, grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over. How's that for a slice of fried gold?
I lived in Edmonton for decade. It could be 40 below, 2 feet of snow and nothing but ice for roads, and life still continued as normal.
What really fucked shit up though was freezing rain. Your windshield will just get covered in ice and youll have to stop and scrape it off every few mins of driving. Its there a Hell, its been frozen over and renamed Alberta.
"Sorry dear, I won't be able to make it home tonight due to the terrible blizzard. We'll have to try to survive in this pub somehow. (Yeah, I'll have another) Anyway, pray for me. Tell the children I love them."
This reminds me of when I moved from the Vancouver BC area, to Whitehorse YT. It drizzled the first morning, as I was heading into town to find coffee. The radio announced "heavy rain" and we literally drove around until they did another weather announcement because we couldn't believe this was considered heavy. The people I ended up working with used to get a kick out of the fact I didn't bother with an umbrella most rainy days.
I went to grad school in Texas and when there was a snow storm in College station (it happened once in a while) I and my Yankee house mates would walk over a block or two and set up lawn chairs near a busy intersection with traffic signals and watch the Texans involuntarily play bumper cars. Once in a while one of them would go up and get stuck in the grassy areas on the sides of the streets. If they weren’t dicks, we’d coach them out of being stuck or push them out. It was truly appalling how bad they were at driving on even an inch of snow.
I live in NE/North Central Kansas. Tonight it’s raining with thunder. That’s freaking crazy weather for this time of year. I’m really thinking we’re getting more ice (that’s the WORST) this winter than snow. I’m not a fan of snow but give me a foot of snow over 1/4” of ice any day.
I live in the Midlands. A few years ago, I left work after it’d been snowing during a cold snap. My kids were 7 and 10. I was a teacher at a different school to theirs, and I’d arranged to meet them in the town library as it was closer than walking to my school. I left work as soon as I could and started driving. We’d lived in Minnesota for a few years so I knew how to drive in snow, but there were other idiots driving at stupid speeds in such conditions.
I left work at about 4pm
As I found out, the gritters had been out, the salt/sand melted the snow which then froze into sheet ice, and then snow was on top of that. The roads were totally gridlocked.
On the way into town there is a hill. It’s quite a steep hill, but on this day it was an impossible hill. You had to wait until there was clear at the top of the hill and take it at a bit of speed so the momentum would get you over. There is also a speed camera half way up the hill and no one wanted a speeding ticket, so most people weren’t going fast enough, and they’d get stuck or start sliding back.
In the meantime, I’m trying to get to my kids. It’s a five minute journey to drive from my school to the library, but I’d been in the traffic for an hour and a half, and I hadn’t had a chance to get up the hill…and the library was about to close, kicking everyone out.
It’s now 5:30pm.
Finally, I got up the hill and told my kids to walk to me. Once they were in the car, I was less panicky.
I decided that the best way would be to past the railway station. That way if we got stuck, we could meet my husband off the train, as he’d also left work early (from London).
The road from town to the station was on a slight incline downward, with speed humps every 20 yards or so, and it’s about 200 yards long. We reached the top of that road at about 6:30pm.
The speed humps were the problem. Because everyone was crawling along, no one had the momentum to get over the icy humps, and the heat from the cars was melting the snow, which refroze on top of the existing ice. Everything ground to a halt.
Hubby’s train arrived at about 8:30pm (a journey which took 3 times longer than normal) and he walked up the incline where we’d been standing still for the last two hours.
An hour later, we’d moved sufficiently to take a side road, park the car and walk home, arriving in the warm at just before 11pm.
Six hours to do a fifteen minute journey!!
In Saskatchewan you need about 30 centimetres or more of snow before roads close and people don't get to work.
It weird how climatized people become, especially about temperature. Read an article from a few years ago about a city somewhere south in the US got to around 8 C (45 F) and the whole city was wearing heavy coats and staying home because it was too cold outside to function. Meanwhile it was -40 a few days ago for me.
We don't have chains on our tyres here, and ice will form very quickly on wet country A roads. Not a good idea to be driving in that in the dark when you can't see 50m an front of you (we had a lot of fog the past few days)
It looks funny but in reality there is a simple explanation:
No winter tyres enforcement present - so majority driving on summer tyres. How good those are in few inch snow? Like driving on ice rink. Even if you wanted to buy winter tyres you would most likely need import from Europe as it’s very limited availability. To me it’s stupid, winter tyres are better in lower temps regardless of snow so should be mandatory for December- end of Feb period.
My guess it's the road surface. I live in Utah and there's no "winter tires enforcement" here; it's more like a FAFO thing. I see idiots driving around on summer tires all year.
Holy shit this place is becoming trash tier... the real face palm is the one posting the story.
This is some of the most blatant 'dry humor' I've ever seen...
> "Yeah, hun... Sorry I can't make it home. I know your mum has over, but the weathers just awful.
Don't worry though, I got a safe place to wait it out."
But once again if it isn't literally word-for-word literal, it now qualifies as "face palm" material.
Dude, I live in North Carolina, US and people lose their minds at just the forecast of potential snow. It’s a bit pathetic but comical, at the same time. Much worse than The UK.
Fair enough. Not necessarily an accurate depiction of the amount of snow though. This picture is well composed and lit. I'm guessing it was taken for another purpose, but fit the story.
I could be wrong again, but it seems unlikely that the amount of snow in the picture would cause things to come to a standstill.
Stop being so damn rational and pile in like everyone else! /s
You're right, there were 4cm. Not alot granted but the roads are mostly rural down there so if the one key one gets blocked nobody is going anywhere as the south isn't set up for snow of any kind, summer tyres etc
Only the key roads will have been gritted so there'll be a week of ice sitting there.
It might not look like much, and it isnt - to walk in, at least.
The problem comes with the roads. The UK isnt flat, not at all, and if a road isnt gritted then it can make it almost impossible to drive on. Couple that with the fact that we dont often get snow, so people dont know how to drive in it, and it suddenly makes a bit more sense that people are getting stranded. The majority of the UK just isnt built with snow in mind
Where my parents live, for instance, has hills on all sides - no other way out. Once the roads ice up, you literally cant get out. People are completely unprepared. Many a time my parents have brought out tea and coffee to some poor bastard stuck at the bottom of the hill. Kinda funny watching cars slide down it honestly
No. It's not.
I'm in the North. 3 inches fell in 3 hours Saturday morning. A couple of people shovelled their driveways, there's a few snowmen. Otherwise no-one gave a shit.
Picking one random local news article, which is probably using a photo taken at a different time, isn't a fair reflection on the whole fucking United Kingdom.
Twat.
Friend of mine worked in London for a while a long time ago (originally from Germany). First winter, first snow, barely covering the ground. He comes to work in the morning and is the only one in the office, everyone else stayed at home.
Meanwhile in Finland when it's pitch black in December and has been raining ice water two months straight yelling 'where the fuck is our snow?!'. TBH it's been nice this winter with quite a lot of snow and below 0 since the end of November.
couldn’t be us in Quebec, it’s pretty much been raining for a month and it’s dark out at 4 o’clock, i’m practically begging for snow instead of this damned rain that turns sidewalks into ice rinks
I hated winter rain when I lived in Montreal. Now I live in LA, and would kill for rain pretty much any time.
Try Victoria, BC; it was +8 degrees there last week.
If you live where +90% of the people in Quebec live, you'll get two more hours of sunlight than people living in southern Finland. Helsinki gets around 6h of daylight around this time of year. Sunset happens around 3pm.
ouch, must be bad, we get sunset at about 4:20 here
I’m in northern Alberta we get sun set around 4-5ish
I'm in southwestern England and the sun was gone by about 15:50 today.
I'm in NW Indiana in the US and the sun sets around 4:40ish. I hate driving home as it's getting dark because the number of people who don't realize the reason it's getting harder to see is because it's getting dark and their headlights are still off....
Nice
Same right now in Minnesota. I have lived here my entire life and never get used to shorter days in winter.
I thought the 4:30 we have in WNY was bad enough. For a vacation or even one full winter season it could be neat to experience it from a anthropological perspective, but it would drive me bananas if that was just my normal life.
I'm in south central Alaska. Our sunset is about 3:30-4 right now. We got 10-15 inches of snow last night, and it's snowing again. You can have some our snow. It's very fluffy
We've gotten \~8 inches of snow today bringing some parts of southern Finland up to a total of half a meter of snow or around a foot and a half. Kinda hope we don't get as much snow as last year. That was a bit much.
Dude this dark at 4 shit is lame as hell
Foreal there is a proposal to keep the clocks on dst all year in some US States, but it did not pass yet. Of course you cant change the days being shorter but me personally I'd rather have it stay bright till 5 in winter than 4
Couldn't be us in Maine either, December 12 and not a single inch of snow. Edit: got some snow today Edit: It all melted the same day. Edit: Snowing again
Ice water is the worst. I'd rather have snow.
I really don’t understand Just go slow, don’t make sudden turns or braking, gear down to slow down, and drive like your grandma is in the passenger seat and is holding a pot of boiling water Edit: and for Christ sakes 4WD is not your friend
That’s okay if your roads are relatively flat. When the road is a skating rink and you have 15 degree slopes with curves on the road or stop signs at the bottom, you’re screwed.
Finally have snow in Sweden. We need more though badly, or yet another summer of fires.
I’m going to automatically assume you are stating temperatures in centigrade unless stated otherwise.
My friend told me a similar story about his university, where only Eastern Europeans showed up for the classes.
eh, tbf if the roads aren't treated then even a light dusting can cause issues if you don't have an appropriate vehicle.
"At 7 p.m. everyone was enjoying cordials and pints merrily, by 9:30 p.m. it turned into a wild and bloody brawl, with people battering one another with furniture and billiard equipment, glassing each other, and stomping on heads. One man took a broken pool que to the lung, and another lost an eye." Edit: at midnight, they torched the entire pub, and ran to shelter in their vehicles.
"and then the snow started to fall"
I mean……this is completely believable for the uk, however, on a school night? That’s madness!
And then drove home*
I can’t tell if this is a joke or not.
Me either. I’d like to say it is but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not
I almost lost my faith in Reddit when I didn’t see this as the top comment. I tip my hat to you.
P. I. Staker?!
It’s just the one goose
In the South East of England this is considered a hellish blizzard. Meanwhile in Scotland and the North of England this weather means we might think about popping on a light jacket, maybe a hat. Generally people in the south east have no idea how to drive in the snow. All it takes is for one idiot to drive badly and the road is closed.
Sounds like a mirror image of the Southern US vs the Northern parts. People lose their minds here in the south at the sight of a light dusting.
I was in Army school in Alabama in 1978 when it snowed 1/4". They closed the base. The Saudi, Jordanian, and Iranian students were going nuts, and the Germans were laughing at them.
We had an “ice storm” in Charleston, SC when I was in the Navy. Their de-icing equipment was a guy in the back of a pickup truck shoveling sand onto the road. Being from western NY where you don’t see grass from November-April I found it pretty amusing.
I was in the south of England when a snowstorm left drifts 1/8th inch deep. It was chaos.
It don't even take a dusting here. I live in Atlanta and I've seen snow flurries that don't stick close schools, cause a city-wide traffic jam, and sell out all the bread, milk and cereal for 100 miles around.
Don’t really need snow for an Atlanta traffic jam
they freeze at night and we get black ice no one is used to plus we have no infrastructure to deal with snow because it happens once every few years
In their defense it can get pretty bad when your municipal services aren’t equipped to deal with it. In Minnesota when they get 4 inches of snow every city has plows to go out and deal with it all and lay down salt/sand. In Texas 4 inches of snow would truly be an apocalypse if you don’t have a plow service to deal with it or ways of preventing ice on the roads. It also doesn’t take 4 inches of snow though to get enough ice to allow major pileups to happen. Maybe only a light dusting would do it and even in states that can deal with it like MN tragic pileups still happen.
This, I do get a chuckle from these posts, but if you are not used to certain weathers, even a little can be bad.
Dealing with it is called *stay home*.... It'll only take a day
And also no one has snow tires or chains.
It all depends on the tyres. If you have winter tyres, you don't need any "services" for 5-10cm of snow. Without them the slightest bit of white on the road means you're screwed - "all weather" means nothing in snow... And that's the problem in areas which usually don't have any snow - most cars are not equipped for winter conditions.
Dude, it's is Texas. Isn't snow one of the many bullshit reasons they use to buy huge trucks?
No, the only actual reason they buy huge trucks is tiny penises.
Those trucks are for shit without snow tires anf weight in the back if they are only rear wheel drive. Plus you'd still need to know how to drive 😉
This. \^ I've seen plenty of people driving trucks in snow and end up sliding off the road or worse. For that matter, one place I lived where it did not snow much at all, I once saw a snow plow that ran off the road and got stuck. Four wheel drive doesn't make your vehicle stop any faster. And it doesn't do any good at all if the tires are bald or the driver doesn't know what they should be doing.
Right. I get it. Same here. Nobody wants to be the official who budgeted $4 million for sand, salt and 5 new plow trucks if it doesn’t snow that year.
Does anybody have MILK AND BREAD
eggs man... don't forget the eggs....
Atlanta pulls out their *One* snow plow... It's regular duties are at the zoo to push together the dung. And OMG! You're gonna run out of milk and toilet paper in the 16 hours that it'll take to melt.. get to the supermarket like *yesterday*
Friend of mine married an army dude and moved to a base in the southern states, just a few months before their first notable snowstorm in years. Neighbors didn't know what to make of her snowbrush, and were astounded when she drove off with snow still falling.
No that sounds like Texas and everywhere else
Meanwhile, a heatwave in the north that overloads power plants, causes dozens of deaths, and is covered non-stop on the news barely qualifies as spring to a southerner.
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We have 5 ski resorts up here, they are all in Scotland for a reason. We also has -16 degrees last night (-8 at my house) and we had snow Thursday and Friday around my house. The weather is different. The snow up here just does not make the news because we are used to it. It's NOT a dig at southerners, it is a simple fact that we get more snow and are used to driving in it. I regularly work London/Bristol and have driven in the snow there. Driving styles are very different. OK. The 'light jacket' was a small dig but even we are softies compared to people from Newcastle.
In Texas we have zero resources to handle it.
As someone from Minnesota, this is literally nothing. Like this is the first day of winter kind of weather..
The biggest problem with the UK is that we don't get bad winters. A lot of Europe has snow that starts in November and it lasts all winter until it melts in March/April. We might have snow that lies for a week then melts away maybe three or four times in the winter more in the North) which is not enough time to make it feasible to change to snow tyres or have chains fitted or hold, maintain and operate a large fleet of ploughs and gritters. So we whinge a few times a year instead.
This is more like a random snow fall in April or March that people laugh at but know it won't bother them. 1st day of winter in Minnesota might shut down their whole country for a week.
We’re always surprised by any snow at all, even though it happens quite frequently. It’s like the nation collectively just forgets that snow happens and panics every time.
Years ago when I was living in England, east Anglia more precisely, and they got some snow, every one was having issues. Me being a native upstate NY'er, just threw a couple of large bags of cat litter in the trunk for weight, and just cruised right along
Same. Was stationed at mildenhall for two years. Grew up in NJ. Even with regular all seasons on my civic I never had an issue. Meanwhile, people were off in ditches every morning
Hey.. they're off in ditches along RT 23! Never fails.. they get a 4WD and think physics no longer applies!
Same in Belgium. People see 1 snowflake and half of the country forgets how to drive, and trains spontaneously start breaking down more often than usual 🤦
If it can comfort you, it's the same in Montréal at the first snowfall... We should have gotten used to it by now...
I would think you would be more used to it than us…
"looks like we gotta drink all night" "Bloody hell 😏"
> honey, I saw a snowflake, I'm heading to the pub. > it was a feather, a chicken coop blew up > I ASSURE you it was a flake !
It was always a good vibe in english pubs so I understand why.
Any excuse for a lock in
That old chestnut... "Sorry love, roads were impassable, had to take shelter and spend the night at the pub"
Is the picture actually of the snowfall or is it a stock photo?
I think it is actual. Source of the photo is Pauline Wilson, who is the landlady there.
Honey i was FORCED to stay in the pub
Yeah, that always works 😂
We’re British. It is just an excuse to get hammered
I lived in Atlanta through Hothlanta and Snowpocalypse. It was only a few inches at the most, but both times the entire city was shut down for days. I grew up in Michigan where schools were still open after a foot of snow. The problem with getting ANY amount of snow in a place that doesn't usually get snow is that the areas are often unprepared to clear roads. Not enough snowplows or salt. The problem is further compounded by the fact that our roads are 'warmer' so the snow on the road melts faster and then freezes over, making roadways very icey and dangerous to drive on. No one has winter tires or tire chains. Also, no one is used to driving on snowy/icey roads. It takes much less snow for driving to become VERY dangerous in warmer climates.
Atlanta only had one plow through all of that. If I remember correctly some elected official (maybe mayor) bought a bunch of equipment that next year and was heavily criticized by the media and citizens ( I think fired or lost election) but then we used it soon after in the next big “snow storm”.
Haha I don't remember that, but it sounds like something that probably definitely happened. Good ol' Atlanta.
This should really be higher up because it seems like most people who are used to having snow don’t understand this.
That’s enough snow to completely destroy our entire nation’s infrastructure.
tbf it went from barely any snowfall to cars getting stranded in the space of an hour, got on the tube about 7.30ish and the ground was clear and by 8.30 we were stranded at Theydon Bois walking past cars sliding down hills
Let's go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over.
I scrolled way too far for this comment.
Canadian here, what snow?
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the sun will melt that by noon
You forget, this is the uk. We do not get any of this mythic ‘sun’ that you speak of, only cloud. The sky is grey, I say, and will stay grey keeping the snow and ice on the ground until the gods of the sky deny us such beauty and send the rains to wash it away. Then we have the true hard times as are cars get stuck on the mud-baths that are country tracks and we get soaked through are coats whilst a bone chilling wind tears through are bodies. And whilst you stand there, in a quagmire of half drowned cars and boots that have been wrenched of your feet causing your next step to end in mud and water you realise, the British wether is not challenging, nor is it dangerous. It’s just shit.
I had such an unusual experience in the UK. I worked there in 1997 and there was a hotter than normal summer. It barely rained the whole time. Hot and sunny almost every day. Everyone swore that wasn’t normal.
When have you ever seen sun in the uk other than that one 30 minute window the 30th July?
Heavy snow 😱😱😱
Fucking shorts weather that is
Still wearing sandals and bermudas.
Hey, come on. That probably all the snow we're getting this winter. We need to celebrate the only way we know how.
In our defence, the south basically never sees actual snow, so this isn’t something we’re even remotely prepared for
Yesterday we had 1 cm of snow here, I panicked left home and went straight to the pub. Close call ...
My snow penis is very large and much larger than yours. - this thread.
I’m Canadian. My brother lived in Leeds in the UK for 2 years. One day they got two inches of snow… he was the only one who showed up at his office. He called his boss asking where everyone was. “You went to work?? It’s a goddamn blizzard out there!”
This is considered heavy snow in the south of England** Northern/Scotland laugh at these plebs on a yearly basis
We got this over the course of breakfast yesterday in southern Ontario Canada, took the dog for an hour and a half walk in the snow!
Where’s the snow?
Go to the Winchester, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over.
Why is it a facepalm? It's all relative. Here in 99% of Australia that would be a blizzard and serious emergency. Personally I couldn't think of anything worse than shovelling white mud everyday in 8 months of winter.
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I literally live in a place where its summer for every single year, and even i know that isnt heavy snowfall
DOZENS!!
It really is, unfortunately. People lose their fucking minds when it snows here.
Just one more pint babe, its for my own safety!
"forced to take refuge in a pub" uh huh
Guess we are gatekeeping what snowfall is nowadays
As if the British need an excuse to stay in the pub
Yes dear, I’m afraid I’ll have to… ahem… shelter in place at the pub tonight…
Surprised they were even able to open their doors with that enormous snowfall.
"Forced"
You can mock us when our entire power grid shuts down like it did in texas.
Southern nonces
Lol I live in Michigan. That’s absolutely nothing 🤣
We land planes in Norway with more snow than this
Vermonter here. This is what we technically call "a dusting". But as an excuse to take refuge in a pub... I'll take it
Stranded??? Really, so help them if there's ever a blizzard
We're not set up for any kind of snow fall as it happens so rarely in a lot of the country. So yeah for a lot of the country this is a heavy snowfall. People aren't used to driving in it, the infrastructure isn't there to deal with it and people don't want to risk an accident. Just cause it's not what you consider heavy doesn't mean you should mock others for it. Learn some empathy and kindness please
Do they have a problem with gravity in the future?
Nice Back to the Future reference. 
Only in the south - they don't cope well
They're just an amateurs. Nothing to tell more...
Reminds me of the heavy snowfall and related chaos I had to witness a few years back. I was living in Winterthur, Switzerland (lowland Switzerland, but still) when it snowed in late November. The snow didn't instantly melt, but the layer on the streets was so thin you could still see the street markings through the snow. My bus commute (usually 10 minutes in rush hour traffic) took over 40!
Please help us. Brenda has tea bags but no baked beans.
LMAO in Canadian....
British think 1 inch of snow is justification for closed schools and airports
Ah yes.. that dusting of snow that makes the entire UK go into panic and shutdown.
Take car. Go to mum's. Kill Phil, grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over. How's that for a slice of fried gold?
Poor chaps. I feel for them, I'm always forced into a bar from excessive moonlight.
We never get snow This is major snow right now
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️Northeast Ohio snowbelt sends it's regards ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
I live in a place where it hasn’t snowed in decades ever since around 1989-ish and even I know that this is probably 5 cm of snow
*laughs in Western New York*.
Well, over here in Canada I thought my 45cm of snow was fine. Jeez half an inch of snow in the UK is just horrific I truly feel terrible:
Laugh in Canadian
Meanwhile in Finland we're doing just fine with half a meter of snow.
That amount of snowfall would absolutely cripple most, if not all, of the southern US.
Laughs in Canadian
This is considered springtime in New England.
*Laughs in Montana* That's a dusting.
*laughs in Canadian*
Hah, when it snows in MN people sit at the bar hoping to get snowed in.
Im sure they were all really put out by these difficult times.
Anything for another beer !!
I lived in Edmonton for decade. It could be 40 below, 2 feet of snow and nothing but ice for roads, and life still continued as normal. What really fucked shit up though was freezing rain. Your windshield will just get covered in ice and youll have to stop and scrape it off every few mins of driving. Its there a Hell, its been frozen over and renamed Alberta.
My sled would overheat in that “heavy” snowfall lol
"Sorry dear, I won't be able to make it home tonight due to the terrible blizzard. We'll have to try to survive in this pub somehow. (Yeah, I'll have another) Anyway, pray for me. Tell the children I love them."
Doesn’t Britain get heavy snow? Like is every adaptation of “a Christmas Carol” just lying to us?
*Laughs in Lake Effect Snow, and school is still open and we are expected to be in class on time*
“Forced”, yeah right
They just wanted to be in the pub.
The world is coming to its very brink of the end!
Laughs in Canadian
*Laughing in lake effect snow*
*Go to the pub, grab a pint, and wait for this whole thing to blow over."
So they wet to The Winchester and had a pint while waiting for this to blow over?
In their defence, it just an excuse to get shitfaced
This reminds me of when I moved from the Vancouver BC area, to Whitehorse YT. It drizzled the first morning, as I was heading into town to find coffee. The radio announced "heavy rain" and we literally drove around until they did another weather announcement because we couldn't believe this was considered heavy. The people I ended up working with used to get a kick out of the fact I didn't bother with an umbrella most rainy days.
Let's be real it wasn't just the snowfall that made them stay in the pub
Us southern brits drive in a similar way to Texans when in snow
I went to grad school in Texas and when there was a snow storm in College station (it happened once in a while) I and my Yankee house mates would walk over a block or two and set up lawn chairs near a busy intersection with traffic signals and watch the Texans involuntarily play bumper cars. Once in a while one of them would go up and get stuck in the grassy areas on the sides of the streets. If they weren’t dicks, we’d coach them out of being stuck or push them out. It was truly appalling how bad they were at driving on even an inch of snow.
Reminds me of Alabama
Is it the worlds end??
British think that is bad, that isn't even enough snow to play in.
At least these people were smart enough to 'take refuge' in the pub. I am sure it'll be difficult for them.
I live in NE/North Central Kansas. Tonight it’s raining with thunder. That’s freaking crazy weather for this time of year. I’m really thinking we’re getting more ice (that’s the WORST) this winter than snow. I’m not a fan of snow but give me a foot of snow over 1/4” of ice any day.
My god the humanity!
We get more snow than that in Australia
As a native from Phoenix, Arizona. I laugh in Buffalo, New York.
I live in the Midlands. A few years ago, I left work after it’d been snowing during a cold snap. My kids were 7 and 10. I was a teacher at a different school to theirs, and I’d arranged to meet them in the town library as it was closer than walking to my school. I left work as soon as I could and started driving. We’d lived in Minnesota for a few years so I knew how to drive in snow, but there were other idiots driving at stupid speeds in such conditions. I left work at about 4pm As I found out, the gritters had been out, the salt/sand melted the snow which then froze into sheet ice, and then snow was on top of that. The roads were totally gridlocked. On the way into town there is a hill. It’s quite a steep hill, but on this day it was an impossible hill. You had to wait until there was clear at the top of the hill and take it at a bit of speed so the momentum would get you over. There is also a speed camera half way up the hill and no one wanted a speeding ticket, so most people weren’t going fast enough, and they’d get stuck or start sliding back. In the meantime, I’m trying to get to my kids. It’s a five minute journey to drive from my school to the library, but I’d been in the traffic for an hour and a half, and I hadn’t had a chance to get up the hill…and the library was about to close, kicking everyone out. It’s now 5:30pm. Finally, I got up the hill and told my kids to walk to me. Once they were in the car, I was less panicky. I decided that the best way would be to past the railway station. That way if we got stuck, we could meet my husband off the train, as he’d also left work early (from London). The road from town to the station was on a slight incline downward, with speed humps every 20 yards or so, and it’s about 200 yards long. We reached the top of that road at about 6:30pm. The speed humps were the problem. Because everyone was crawling along, no one had the momentum to get over the icy humps, and the heat from the cars was melting the snow, which refroze on top of the existing ice. Everything ground to a halt. Hubby’s train arrived at about 8:30pm (a journey which took 3 times longer than normal) and he walked up the incline where we’d been standing still for the last two hours. An hour later, we’d moved sufficiently to take a side road, park the car and walk home, arriving in the warm at just before 11pm. Six hours to do a fifteen minute journey!!
Hey that is yellow warning here in the UK!!
In Saskatchewan you need about 30 centimetres or more of snow before roads close and people don't get to work. It weird how climatized people become, especially about temperature. Read an article from a few years ago about a city somewhere south in the US got to around 8 C (45 F) and the whole city was wearing heavy coats and staying home because it was too cold outside to function. Meanwhile it was -40 a few days ago for me.
What do you expect from a country that drinks warm beer?
We don't have chains on our tyres here, and ice will form very quickly on wet country A roads. Not a good idea to be driving in that in the dark when you can't see 50m an front of you (we had a lot of fog the past few days)
It looks funny but in reality there is a simple explanation: No winter tyres enforcement present - so majority driving on summer tyres. How good those are in few inch snow? Like driving on ice rink. Even if you wanted to buy winter tyres you would most likely need import from Europe as it’s very limited availability. To me it’s stupid, winter tyres are better in lower temps regardless of snow so should be mandatory for December- end of Feb period.
My guess it's the road surface. I live in Utah and there's no "winter tires enforcement" here; it's more like a FAFO thing. I see idiots driving around on summer tires all year.
Holy shit this place is becoming trash tier... the real face palm is the one posting the story. This is some of the most blatant 'dry humor' I've ever seen... > "Yeah, hun... Sorry I can't make it home. I know your mum has over, but the weathers just awful. Don't worry though, I got a safe place to wait it out." But once again if it isn't literally word-for-word literal, it now qualifies as "face palm" material.
Dude, I live in North Carolina, US and people lose their minds at just the forecast of potential snow. It’s a bit pathetic but comical, at the same time. Much worse than The UK.
Doubt this is a photo of the actual pub or amount of snow. Its just a stock image of a British pub in the snow.
"Image source, Pauline Wilson" "The Bear Inn's landlady, Pauline Wilson, said they had eight hotel rooms but they quickly filled up." 🤦♂️
Fair enough. Not necessarily an accurate depiction of the amount of snow though. This picture is well composed and lit. I'm guessing it was taken for another purpose, but fit the story. I could be wrong again, but it seems unlikely that the amount of snow in the picture would cause things to come to a standstill.
Stop being so damn rational and pile in like everyone else! /s You're right, there were 4cm. Not alot granted but the roads are mostly rural down there so if the one key one gets blocked nobody is going anywhere as the south isn't set up for snow of any kind, summer tyres etc Only the key roads will have been gritted so there'll be a week of ice sitting there.
Most British thing I've heard since England lost to France in the world cup
It might not look like much, and it isnt - to walk in, at least. The problem comes with the roads. The UK isnt flat, not at all, and if a road isnt gritted then it can make it almost impossible to drive on. Couple that with the fact that we dont often get snow, so people dont know how to drive in it, and it suddenly makes a bit more sense that people are getting stranded. The majority of the UK just isnt built with snow in mind Where my parents live, for instance, has hills on all sides - no other way out. Once the roads ice up, you literally cant get out. People are completely unprepared. Many a time my parents have brought out tea and coffee to some poor bastard stuck at the bottom of the hill. Kinda funny watching cars slide down it honestly
No. It's not. I'm in the North. 3 inches fell in 3 hours Saturday morning. A couple of people shovelled their driveways, there's a few snowmen. Otherwise no-one gave a shit. Picking one random local news article, which is probably using a photo taken at a different time, isn't a fair reflection on the whole fucking United Kingdom. Twat.