Thermometers show minus 1 celcius, and the ground is just about dusted with snow. Yet, we already have traffic chaos, huge delays on public transport, cancelled flights and closed schools across the UK.
Having grown up in Sweden I'm again surprised by the vast problems a little bit of snow seems to cause in England every winter.
I can’t remember being blessed with a single day off from school due to snowy or cold weather - not even when the snow lay meter high and temperatures plummeted to 40 below zero.
Eurostar beaten by fluffy snow
Last winter was indeed the coldest in almost thirty years with temperatures as low as minus 20. And most northern European countries experience a day or two of chaos when the first winter snow falls.
But the snowy conditions of 2009-2010 cost the UK economy a staggering £2bn. We ran out of road salt early on, and the lack of snow-clearing equipment forced people to stay at home from work, costing society additional millions in lost business.
Over 100.000 Eurostar passengers were stuck at St. Pancras and Gar du Nord the days before Christmas last year, when train after train broke down. The problems were blamed on the "fluffy” consistency of the snow…
If we will continue to experience the same disasters this winter remains to be seen, but the long trend of mid winters definitely seems to have changed for colder ones.
Maybe it’s time to learn from the grim lessons of previous winters, invest in some snow ploughs, and introduce the Brits to winter tyres.
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