We, in the UK, are coming up to almost 3 weeks with snow and ice more or less continuously on the ground. There are parts, mountainous parts like the Snake Pass and the Highlands, where this is relatively common but I've never lived in or near either of those areas.
People in the mountainous areas of the US, in Canada, in Scandinavia and the like laugh when they hear what a few centimetres of snow does to us - large parts of the country grind to a halt with 5cm of snow (that's 2" in old money) so considering yesterday we had 10cm, today is predicted at 10-15, tomorrow about the same and Thursday and Friday more... you can imagine we're in a mess.
They ask, quite reasonably, why we don't have shovels and rock salt to clear the snow off the pavements, why we don't have snow tires on our cars and so on.
What they don't seem to realise is how unusual this weather is for us. I remember one other white Christmas in my life - that just scraped in as a wafer-thin layer of snow fell. I don't ever remember three weeks of snow and ice in a year. In fact, this is winter has given me the memory of more snow and ice (in the UK) during the rest of my life added together. (Odd things like glaciers in New Zealand make for a bigger chunk of ice.) I've lived in my current home for just over 15 years. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think in that time there have been fewer than 5 days with snow remaining on the ground for longer than an hour. It might be a day or two out, one way or the other, but it's a nice round number and it's reasonably accurate.
So, let's use that number. Once in every 3 years (5 days/15years) there's more than a hour's worth of snow on the ground. Let's say, for the sake of argument that's a whole day - occasionally it might be 2 days but more often it's less than a day. How much preparation would you make?
That's on a personal level as well as a local and national governmental level. I don't drive... but snow tires cost a lot and changing them takes more. Our main roads have been more or less kept clear - so I wouldn't be doing that. I can see warmer gloves, thermal long johns and other things becoming sensible. Rock salt to clear the path becomes sensible at some point but I'm not sure when. Do I buy some tomorrow (assuming I can actually find any) and then hope I can find it again in three years time?
All that said, large parts of the UK have had two significant snow-falls in the last 12 months. If that trend continues... increases even... then all of those options become more and more viable, more and more important. It's easy to be complacent about the weather when you've got the experiences I have of it. Climate change though... climate change is real and although we're talking global warming that might result in colder winters for the UK. Interesting times.
