Snowmaggedon!

The Siberian cold that has been making headlines as it slowly marched from east to west across Europe collided with the warm, moist Gulf Stream air right over Britain this past weekend. It began to snow in Nottingham on Saturday afternoon. It was just flurries at first, but gradually the snowfall became more intense and it began to stick to the ground, rooftops, and trees.

Big, wet flakes began Saturday evening
(photo by Alex Forbes)

Because it's England, where things are wet much of the time, the snow was the wet, heavy kind. And because it's England, where snow is relatively rare, there is neither the equipment to remove it, nor the collective knowledge of how to deal with it, that we bring from the upper Midwest.

The student flat on a snowy Saturday night
(photo by Alex Forbes)

Several of our students had gone into the city center, by bus of course, but wound up walking two miles home because the buses had stopped running by late evening. They were also much entertained by watching drivers spin their tires on streets that wouldn't have been much of a problem back home in Iowa, Minnesota or Wisconsin. Traffic came to a standstill.

Nottingham traffic came to a standstill
(photo by Alex Forbes)

Fortunately, most people didn't have to go to work on Sunday morning, so the "grit teams" had a chance to drive their trucks along the main roads spreading salt. There are no snow plows here. Nothing has been done to the side streets or sidewalks. Most people don't even own a snow shovel.

Our "garden" (back yard) in early Sunday morning light.

Officially, the total snowfall here was seven centimeters, or just about 2.75 inches. I'm not sure we even got that much where we are. But the cold air is forecast to hang around for several weeks (it's only 37 degrees Fahrenheit this afternoon), so we may get more.