The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

UK buried under 30cm of snow

Western Europe also. The snowfall has paralyzed (paralysed?) the entire country:

South-east England has the worst snow it has seen for 18 years, causing all London buses to be pulled from service and the closure of Heathrow's runways.

The Met Office has issued an extreme weather warning for England, Wales and parts of eastern Scotland.

Up to four inches is forecast to fall later on Monday in south-east England, and up to 12 inches in the north-east. Speaking at a press conference in Downing Street, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "We are doing everything in our power to ensure services, road, rail and airports are open as quickly as possible, and we are continuing to monitor this throughout the day."

(After which Conservative Party leader David Cameron asked if Brown still believes that the freeze-thaw cycle has ended.)

All of my colleages at my client's office in Chicago—where we've had snow on the ground without interruption all year—wonder what the fuss is about. The visiting Londoners reminded us that the UK probably has fewer snowplows than a typical Chicago ward, and complained that the one snow day they're likely to see all year doesn't affect them (the client's London office is closed today).

In unrelated news, the cheeky rodent came out wearing sunglasses today, so if woodchucks are any good at predicting the weather, we'll have another 6 weeks of snow on the ground. (Malverne Mel, on Long Island, did not see his shadow. The cognoscenti know Mel's a better forecaster.)

Update: Le Monde has photos from Paris and Madrid.

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