UPDATE: BBC and Reuters is reporting (h/t to reader FergalR) that:
‘Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said he had asked the government’s chief scientific adviser to assess whether the country was experiencing a “step change” in weather patterns due to climate change and whether it needed to spend more money on winter preparations.’
Maybe they’ll have a look at Met Office climate models and CRU with a real investigation.
Record grit reserves in Lincolnshire ‘60% gone’
More than half the grit stocks held by Lincolnshire County Council have already been used, officials have said.
Despite starting the winter with 31,600 tonnes – 8,000 more than usual – the council said it had already used about 60% due to persistent low temperatures.
It had spread almost as much salt this year as it did for the whole of the 2007-08 winter.
The council said the next delivery was not due until mid-January so resources would be used carefully.
Councillor William Webb, Executive Member for Highways and Transport, promised to keep main routes open.
He said: “We’ll keep on gritting whenever it’s needed – be that 1pm on Christmas Day or Midnight on New Year’s Eve – whilst ensuring that appropriate quantities are being spread and salt isn’t wasted.
“We greatly value the assistance of farmers, contractors and even private individuals in supporting our tireless efforts to ensure safety for motorists and pedestrians.”
The authority covers 1,869 miles (3,008km) of Lincolnshire’s main routes, including all A and B roads.
While the amount of snow seen at the beginning of the month is not forecast for the next few days, temperatures as low as -7C (19.4F) are expected to be widespread.
Related – On December 2nd, this BBC story said:
Road salt is ‘disappearing fast’, Welsh councils warn
At the London Evening Standard, it seems at least one official is confident though, or maybe he’s “hiding the decline” of grit:
Today Boris Johnson promised Londoners the capital was prepared for anything that the elements could throw at it. He said: “Even if it snows 24 hours a day, morning, noon and night for two weeks, which has never happened before, we have enough grit for our roads.
…
Forecasters said the second big blast of the winter could last until Christmas and warned London to brace itself for “the main event” tomorrow.
It takes “true grit” to make such predictions in the face of nature.
Winter.
A season for True Grit.
Won’t the Met Office be proud!
OMG – now we have a global salt shortage! Save the salt! Tax everything!
“resources would be used carefully”, presumably means “We won’t be gritting your road.” Down here in Surrey the B road that links us to the outside world was not gritted at all in this snowfall nor in the last one.
Presumably the local councils have been continuing to believe the Met Office.
I’m waiting for the Chief Scientist to apologise for misleading the public into believing that cold winters were a thing of the past – but I’m not holding my breath.
BTW, does anyone have the figures for windfarm output as a % of maximum planned power production for the last 3 weeks?
So instead of snow, it is the road salt which is ‘disappearing fast’. Sure, Dr Viner predicted exactly this.
mighyt be more accurate than flippin tree rings! LOL
When it snows in UK, everyone thinks “grit”. Few thinks “snow plough or plow” or “show shovel”.
Grit on 20-30 cm of new, un-plowed snow is, well, just a mess.
Here’s the Daily Mash from a couple of months ago: councils begin not getting enough salt for winter
It always pays to take what Boris says with a little pinch of salt. His style is not the calm, considered bureaucrat.
Breaking news-on the BBC
Chief Scientist of UK has been asked by British Govt to re look at climate models bearing in mind the successive cold winters.
A Chink of light or merely the excuse to blame global warming for the global cooling?
Tonyb
Down in Devon, in the mild south west of England, I can report that I have been cut off from the outside world by deep snow for the second time this December. It was -15.6degC last night. Last winter I recorded a minimum of -17.9degC, but I was only cut off once.
The wind is not blowing and so all those wind turbines will be drawing power from the grid to stop themselves icing up. My oil tank level is falling at an unprecedented rate. Fortunately I took note of Piers Corbyn’s forecast for the winter, so I have stocks of food and oil. The Met Office is only 20 miles away and I ignored their forecast of a milder than normal winter.
This Mann-made global warming is definitely worse than I thought.
I should have added that the local authority leaves a few bags of salt at the side of the road and leaves it up to people to look after themselves. It’s tough if you aren’t in a town or on a main road. Most people live in towns and cities and their votes count more than fural folk.
Yesterday I travelled from my home in Ashford Middlesex (under Surrey council) to Hounslow (a London borough) at the council boundary the road condition changed from a compact snow covering to broken up ice and slush and clear tarmac.
Here is the link referred to in my 12.38
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/887a7b9c-0ae4-11e0-9b58-00144feabdc0.html#axzz18XxaT6hM
Philip Bratby
I am on the south coast of Devon-where are you?
tonyb
“Road salt is ‘disappearing fast’, Welsh councils warns”
Blame it on global warming, everyone else does 🙂
Meanwhile in my own hometown an announcement from city-council
http://www.maassluis.nl/index.php?simaction=content&mediumid=2&pagid=13&stukid=39185
“Door schaarste momenteel geen strooizout voor particulieren” – wich says, we are running out of salt so we are not giving it to the locals anymore, wich is good because last week we made the headlines in national papers because of improper behavoir by those same locals when they found out that free salt means only a single bucket of free salt.
Must be civil unrest caused by Global Warming, what else could it be?
well, here just outside Oxford we had about a foot yesterday. quite rare especially before Christmas. Anybody got any links to good climate catastrophe quotes from 20 years ago? I seem to remember someone saying something about not seeing snow in the UK again.
ps grumpy old man, here is a good link to recent UK power production broken down by type
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html
@James Baldwin Bull
Ah well, that’s the old UHI effect – from the depths of rural Surrey to the Metropolis
(And if anyone’s ever been to Ashford Middx, they’ll appreciate
the irony ).
But really, Hounslow is required to keep the Heathrow Airport approach roads clear, despite there being no planes.
To highlight why the met are wrong, again, here is a newspaper article from the start of this year….it seems the learning-curve is a bit straight:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/dominic_lawson/article6982310.ece
Feedback at work. The more salt is used, the further the trucks have to go on snowy roads until they reach a tipping point where the empty trucks can’t get to the salt. Is ‘tipping point’ the right word for these trucks?
Is not salt a chemical that has more potentiasl harm than CO2? Better tell the USA EPA about it.
Grumpy Old man December 19, 2010 at 12:12 am –
“BTW, does anyone have the figures for windfarm output as a % of maximum planned power production for the last 3 weeks?”
Look on the website below (it doesn’t work on Chrome for some reason but does work on Firefox) and scroll down near the bottom to a table headed “Current generation By Fuel Type”. As at 09:30 UK time on Sunday it shows wind 0.6% current (no pun!) and 0.8% for the last 24 hours.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/
And here is the National Grid page for windpower, no doubt somewhere in the site is the current amount generated by same but you’ll have to dig.
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/WindPowerOperation/
Here is the current demand data, updated regularly, with various national/international interconnectors shown:
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Data/Realtime/Demand/
“Phillip Bratby says:
December 19, 2010 at 12:42 am
Down in Devon, in the mild south west of England, I can report that I have been cut off from the outside world by deep snow for the second time this December. It was -15.6degC last night. Last winter I recorded a minimum of -17.9degC, but I was only cut off once……”
Be interesting to get an update on Otter farm in Devon, much heralded as the future of farming
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/crops/5785670/Olives-and-peaches-blossom-in-Britain-as-farmers-adapt-to-climate-change.html.
A few years ago the farmer went over to Mediterranean crops particularly olive trees. They die at -15C.
tonyb says:
December 19, 2010 at 12:38 am
Breaking news-on the BBC
Chief Scientist of UK has been asked by British Govt to re look at climate models bearing in mind the successive cold winters.
A Chink of light or merely the excuse to blame global warming for the global cooling?
Tonyb”
Not a chink of light. Notice how they are saying “step change” and “climate change”. Handily they’ve already primed the public awhile back by shifting from global warming to global climate change. They’ll rework their models to say the northern hemisphere’s “global” climate will get colder and everyone else will get that much hotter. Damn the data, full steam ahead with the models!
“Transport Secretary Philip Hammond said he had asked the government’s chief scientific adviser to assess whether the country was experiencing a “step change” in weather patterns due to climate change…”
Doesn’t it bug one that they always have to get that key phrase “due to climate change” mentioned (whether alluding to warming or cooling). He couldn’t simply have asked whether the country was experiencing a “step change” in weather patterns – and left it that, could he? It just makes you want to scream at them that the climate has always, is now, and always will CHANGE. It’s just what climates do, fickle bastards that they are.
In the UK.
Channel 4 news last night reported that emergency services were asking owners of 4*4 vehicles for assistance in ferrying staff, nurses and doctors, to their places of work as there was a serious problem with staffing levels at hospitals due to the snow.
Those of us that own these ‘poluting’ vehicles pay double the amount of road tax than a standard vehicle because the government wants to reduce their numbers on the road!
I have no problem at all in helping out at a comunity level and will gladly assist when needed. I only ask that government policy be re-evaluated in order to ensure that emergency services are provided with the vehicles required to meet their needs in this cooling climate and the taxation classes adjusted back to the pre green hysteria levels.
Simple request, no pressure!