National: Severe Cold/ Snow Discussion (Thanks to all!)

jimmy.d

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

1982, It was more of a snow blizzard and resulted in drifting. I still think that more snow fell in 1982, where I live anyway, kildare/wicklow border, drifts were huge
I have seen photos of 1947 and that looked horrendous, snow higher than ditches. So this winter has not been up to that level, but its still only December folks :pac:

ya my mother told me in 47 they had to follow the poles up on the ditch's to find their way into town

Wibbles19

Stopped here now but wind still from the west

Loscherland

Heavy shower in Stillorgan, past ten minutes... Still going...

steveLFC24

DWCommuter wrote: »

Ahem...have you been to Canada in the winter? Their snow and ice is far worse that what we have now. Have you been to Germany this week? Ireland has got off lightly in terms of snowfall and we consistently fail to deal with moderate snowfall year after year. There is no comparison between Ireland and countries that regularly receive massive snowfall (Canada) or countries that are prone to the risk of seriously heavy snowfall (Germany).

Ireland and Snow = delirious snow loving natives/failure to deal with it at the most basic level. This snow is a joke. Ive seen real snow. 1982 was rough and more on a par with Canada and eastern Europe. Thats the kind of snow that justifiably causes problems. What we have now is chicken feed and we can't handle it so yes I have a right to be critical. My home county had no grit last night or today (Kildare), but when the last thaw happened they were out gritting like mad on roads that could do without it.

The difference is places like Germany and Canada EXPECT serious snowfall, at the the very least once a year. This is the most snow we've had in 20 odd years with the coldest irish december on record (so far). The fact is its a freak event (maybe not, only future will tell). We don't have the infrastructure to deal with this kind of weather, and although it was forecast, implementing procedures to cope with it makes months; and sadly its not possible to forecast irish weather with an certaintly more than a week in advance...never mind months.

I'm in the middle on this one. I can completely understand your critisism, and feel the same to a certain extent, but realistically there is never gona be enough salt/grit to keep every single road/lane intact, so theres always going to be people pissed off that they're area isn't gritted. Maybe this is a sign of things to come and they should have headed the warning last January? But in all honesty, who could have foreseen this. Either way I'm sure the the last 2 weeks has given them something to think about.

-14C near Athlone, just brought in some beer I bave to put in the fridge to warm up!

I'll need a tin opener to open it!

ffarrell7

CiaraBohs wrote: »

Question: when was the last time snow has been seen in ireland like this

certainly not in my lifetime anyway which means its clearly not regular.... people keep refaring to the last lot of snow as last year ... bare in mind that it was actually THIS january that it happened .... so for a country that hasn't had snow like this in i dont know how many years to be coping as well as we are i think is amazing as i have been to sweden and seen their snow clearing measures and they're amazing and they expect this weather .... even sweden are struggling

Sorry but there was very heavy snow in West Dublin in 2008, 2009 and now 2010. This is our fifth heavy snowfall in three years her in any case. Southern Germany is prone to very heavy snowfall as is the East. However Northern Germany eg. Hamburg is not. Dublin's snowfall yesterday was on a par with that that fell in Germany. Zurich had pracically nothing and was 5 degrees above freezing yesterday as was Geneva. We have been having these very cold temperatures since end of November 2010 and by Easternn European contintental standards they are very bad. Scandanavia gets much more severs winters. I lived in Paris for four years and French Canada. It hardly ever snows in Paris and when it does it is a dribble in general which brings the palce to a halt although it does get vey cold at times as does Brussels but they do not get much snowfall.

jimmy.d

jimmy.d wrote: »

it looks goodhttp://www.dmi.dk/dmi/index/danmark/vejrkort.htmpress on nedbor on the site

for tomorrow:D

highdef

Frequent heavy snow showers in Baldoyle, D13 the past few hours. Have been looking at them on net weather radar and every single shower coming in makes landfall between portmarnock and sutton with Baldoyle getting the core each time. The past 5 or so showers have been like this and another is bearing down now. The track is so exact and repetitive each time that once you get west of the Malahide Road onto the N32, there's been virtually zilch all evening!!! Baldoyle has gotten over an inch of snow this evening alone.

th3 s1aught3r

jimmy.d wrote: »

ya my mother told me in 47 they had to follow the poles up on the ditch's to find their way into town

Yeah my mother told me the same thing. Its hard to imagine what it was like back then, before electricity had arrived here I think. Plus all the livestock that died in the cold, that was some peoples food for the winter
I think we are a little soft these days moaning about not being able to get all the presents on time !

hotmail.com

ploki90 wrote: »

whats the story with traffic round dublin?? i have to drive to the big smoke from cavan tomorrow to collect my girlfriend and bring her home Xmas eve. im quite worried about all the reports iv been reading on traffic and weather. could any of you guys put my mind at rest and tell me its all guna be grand.
or am i in for a rough journey????

Leave after the morning rush hour and be home well before the evening rush hour and you should be ok. The N3 outbound was horrific today, cars stuck in traffic for hours. I hope it was just a once off, made worse by xmas shopping.

missrandomer

i was only a napper filler in 82 but family still talk about helicoptors dropping supplies and not seeing anyone for a month. snow half way up the windows.

i love snow and how it brings a family together and communities.

i know we have alot of snow.... is it wrong to wonder if we get a few more snowflakes here, hope some of them showers pop down here

ffarrell7

What has fallen in West and South Dublin/Wicklow is not chicken feed. 35-40 cm fall in places is serious snowfall in a day and half even by Alpine standards. Get a grip and grow up.

steveLFC24 wrote: »

The difference is places like Germany and Canada EXPECT serious snowfall, at the the very least once a year. This is the most snow we've had in 20 odd years with the coldest irish december on record (so far). The fact is its a freak event (maybe not, only future will tell). We don't have the infrastructure to deal with this kind of weather, and although it was forecast, implementing procedures to cope with it makes months; and sadly its not possible to forecast irish weather with an certaintly more than a week in advance...never mind months.

I'm in the middle on this one. I can completely understand your critisism, and feel the same to a certain extent, but realistically there is never gona be enough salt/grit to keep every single road/lane intact, so theres always going to be people pissed off that they're area isn't gritted. Maybe this is a sign of things to come and they should have headed the warning last January? But in all honesty, who could have foreseen this. Either way I'm sure the the last 2 weeks has given them something to think about.

little bess

Looks like a little more activity in the Irish sea on last radar

Fnutkrumpler

Latest radar is showing increased activity in Irish sea. More streamers to come.

lol beaten to it

delw

highdef wrote: »

Frequent heavy snow showers in Baldoyle, D13 the past few hours. Have been looking at them on net weather radar and every single shower coming in makes landfall between portmarnock and sutton with Baldoyle getting the core each time. The past 5 or so showers have been like this and another is bearing down now. The track is so exact and repetitive each time that once you get west of the Malahide Road onto the N32, there's been virtually zilch all evening!!! Baldoyle has gotten over an inch of snow this evening alone.

right beside the n32 &about half 9 we got a good shower but since then only flurries,your right that we seem to be right on the edge

th3 s1aught3r

little bess wrote: »

Looks like a little more activity in the Irish sea on last radar

Dublin is like a magnet for those streamers

ffarrell7

missrandomer wrote: »

i was only a napper filler in 82 but family still talk about helicoptors dropping supplies and not seeing anyone for a month. snow half way up the windows.

i love snow and how it brings a family together and communities.

i know we have alot of snow.... is it wrong to wonder if we get a few more snowflakes here, hope some of them showers pop down here

And that is what it was really like, even in Drumcondra..metres of the stuff (in drifts). During the eighties Wicklow had massive snow..cut off for weeks and helicopters dropping food parcels for people. It is all on record and on the internet. The Dublin/Wicklow mountains can get some verious serious snowfall.:):)

snowww

little bess wrote: »

Looks like a little more activity in the Irish sea on last radar

Link please

steveLFC24

ffarrell7 wrote: »

What has fallen in West and South Dublin/Wicklow is not chicken feed. 35-40 cm fall in places is serious snowfall in a day and half even by Alpine standards. Get a grip and grow up.

ehhh, I think you quoted the wrong post in this one mate Its was the other dude that said that. check it again!

little bess

snowww wrote: »

Link please

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

snowww

little bess wrote: »

http://www.raintoday.co.uk/

Thanks

opticalens

I would just like to say.....thank god for a real fire, I'm well stocked up with coal and slack and the heat it gives off is way way better than just oil or gas rads, i've neighbours just across the road from me (not in the same estate of course) who's houses don't even have a chimney....yes my house is a new shoebox too but at least I can light a real fire...that's def a dealbreaker. I said it when we moved in and my other half is glad of it now.

CiaraBohs

ffarrell7 wrote: »

Sorry but there was very heavy snow in West Dublin in 2008, 2009 and now 2010. This is our fifth heavy snowfall in three years her in any case. Southern Germany is prone to very heavy snowfall as is the East. However Northern Germany eg. Hamburg is not. Dublin's snowfall yesterday was on a par with that that fell in Germany. Zurich had pracically nothing and was 5 degrees above freezing yesterday as was Geneva. We have been having these very cold temperatures since end of November 2010 and by Easternn European contintental standards they are very bad. Scandanavia gets much more severs winters. I lived in Paris for four years and French Canada. It hardly ever snows in Paris and when it does it is a dribble in general which brings the palce to a halt although it does get vey cold at times as does Brussels but they do not get much snowfall.

we did not get "heavy" snowfall by any means in 08 or 09 nowhere near this much anyway
especially not in this part of dublin

as i said i have never seen snow this bad so in fairness if its over 20 years since we've had a sizeable amount of snow we can't be expected to handle it as well as countries that expect this weather

vibe666

i was in blanch village around 10pm getting the last few bits of xmas shopping and the car was only reading -3 which seemed pretty mild (lol, -3 mild:D) but it was -5 by the time i got past clonsilla on the N3 and then by the time I got to the tara exit on the M3 it was -9 and almost 11pm :eek:

was still showing -9 outside the house when i pulled up too.

Calibos

Think of the main 36 hour event in '82 like that frontal system last Winter. There had been embedded cold when the frontal system moved in and battle ensued but the Atlantic won. Remember we got a day and a half of non stop lashing rain. I am sure the thread could be dug up from the archives. Well anyway. Think of that level of precipitation...in a gale.....with huge flakes of snow....that just goes on and on hour after hour for a day and a half.

So even the epic 2ft falls in Arklow and Wicklow and West Dublin don't compare to '82. No snowfall anywhere in the country compares.

As for 1987. Whether this Winter beats it for accumulations depends on luck and location. For some areas that only got 6 or 7 inches in '87 but got 18 inches this year? Well obviously '10 blows away '87. For me in Bray with a max depth of 5 inches Monday afternoon, well still isn't a patch on '87 because Bray got over a foot that year.

In terms of Today. Thrilled to get out from under the gap in the late afternoon but disappointed the blob's that hit their Bray target seem to have been less intense affairs than what Dalkey got. Another 2 inches reported in Dalkey as of a few hours ago where Bray seemed to get a twin shower around the same time every time but all we seemed to get where icing sugar. That was until a shower before midnight there. First decent 20 minute heavy shower with a mix of fluffy flakes and grains. About a centimetres worth. At least the car roofs and windows are white again and the dirty lying snow has got a fresh lick of paint

Fingers crossed we get some more decent showers during the night. Looking at Sat24, it doesn't look like the Irish sea is ready to go to bed yet. Still lots of streamers forming east and west of the Isle of Man who's dreaded shadow has been directed at Wexford all day. Welcome to my World Beasterly! Seems like they are needing the full sea track to collect enough moisture and are only 'bursting' into life just off the coast which seems to be why the activity on Radar just seems to come out of nowhere.

Finally a question. Can the experts tell us why this NE wind and Irish Sea is not delivering the intensity it delivered during the last cold period a few weeks ago. Is the NE wind not as cold this time or is it the fact the sea is colder now a month later and it just can't generate that intensity anymore?

vibe666

opticalens wrote: »

I would just like to say.....thank god for a real fire, I'm well stocked up with coal and slack and the heat it gives off is way way better than just oil or gas rads, i've neighbours just across the road from me (not in the same estate of course) who's houses don't even have a chimney....yes my house is a new shoebox too but at least I can light a real fire...that's def a dealbreaker. I said it when we moved in and my other half is glad of it now.

ditto, same here.

we actually had a gas pipe sticking up and it was all plumbed in, but we got some guys in that were recommended by bord gais to shut it off so we could have an open fire and we've been very glad of it.

missrandomer

i used to think they were messin about being dropped food parcels and no esb etc but yep your right ffarrel its documented and well talked about still to this day in the area.

a helicopter flew by the other nite, very low and slow... we wondered was it a rescue or maby an effort to help just like back in 82. Strange to see them out at that time and in cloudy weather

vibe666

Calibos wrote: »

Think of the main 36 hour event in '82 like that frontal system last Winter. There had been embedded cold when the frontal system moved in and battle ensued but the Atlantic won. Remember we got a day and a half of non stop lashing rain. I am sure the thread could be dug up from the archives.

not sure if boards.ie was around back then. :pac:

CiaraBohs

jimmy.d wrote: »

it looks goodhttp://www.dmi.dk/dmi/index/danmark/vejrkort.htmpress on nedbor on the site

the danish even know our weather better than ME :L

srocliffe

vibe666 wrote: »

not sure if boards.ie was around back then. :pac:

I think he means this thread

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054920482