It’s melting in Vienne.
Look out UK! Another dire warning!
I remember the fallout after a summer Bank Hol when the proprorietors of hotel, cafes, restaurants etc of ‘The English Riviera’ [Torquay/Tor Bay] were up for suing the Met Office because the forecast was for a long wet w/e.
Bookings were way down. People stayed away in droves. The sun shone for days.
Does anyone remember that guy on the UK TV Weather Forecast that said at 8pm “No we are not going to have a storm in the South of England”, and at 3am the storm arrived and ripped rows of trees out of the ground and upturned cars and did all sorts of damage? I think it was 1987.
He was sacked by the Met Office. But somehow he won at an Employment Tribunal amd even took reinstatement and got his job back unfortunately, rather than compensation.
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It was Michael Fish. I think he said “hurricane”. Was he sacked?
Do you mean Michael Fish and the hurricane? If so, the story seems to have been embellished over the years.
Yes apparently he was a generally unpopular individual as well. But I’m workimg from memory of seeing him say that, and then waking up at 3am to hear the storm and then drove 40 miles on the Southern bit of tje M25 to work and scenes of devastation like, literally, huge trees ripped out of the ground.
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Poor Michael Fish… he took a lot of stick for his forecasting on that particular occasion. 
But we (family/friends) all liked him… never heard anything nasty/unsavoury about him. he made weather reporting interesting and informative. He got the MBE for his work of 30years
and, yes , I too saw and heard him calming our fears.. just before the “hurricane” hit us 
At the moment, my phone tells me “rain will stop soon” (what rain.. nuffink there)
I was tarting up a flat at Manor Fields, the 1930’s estate at the top of Putney Hill. At the lights at the top, three young +/-6m trees had been flattened, all in a dead st line. The last one had knocked over the traffic light which was still blinking away, st up at the sky -
Most amusing.
They reckon ±15 million tees were downed.
I was woken in the early hours, in Maida Vale. It was daylight. The glass in all my windows, large sash about 1m x 1m, was creaking with the pressure difference. I opened them all up, to hear a fantastic roaring.
The bad weather we’ve had here has resulted in another rockfall. This one, according to my neighbour who went to inspect it, is much worse than the one we’ve been driving around for the past 8-10 week. He reckons a Land Rover wouldn’t be able to drive over it. It covers the full width of the road. Well, there is this sign
Now we have this one, parhaps the council will be minded to clear both of them. It’s about time they did.
We had some snow two days ago, first since the winter of 2012/13, but very little compared to growing up on the Pennines or later commuting across Cumbria.
Nevertheless it was interesting to see how carefully all the locals were driving (ie. much slower than usual, albeit without increasing the braking distance). Then yesterday we got loads of rain, horrible driving conditions compared to the day before, but around here they’re familiar with rain, so back to normal speeds while maintaining the traditional inadequate braking distance. Result: two separate accidents within two hours on the same 70kph bend just outside our village.
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That is interesting! Here in the limousin it was absolutely business as usual! At least 10km/h over the limit at all times and so close to the car in front there is almost no chance of not ending up in the back during an emergency under normal conditions, let alone during snow / ice!
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I remember that well given I was a tree officer at the time! Even getting into work was hard, and then we were working round the clock for weeks. And then I joined the Countryside Commission who had set up the task force trees programme., and continued working in forestry jos many years.
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Many drivers down here won’t have seen snow for years if ever, unless they go to the ski resorts in the Cantal, and of course you then need the right tyres /chains/ socks, etc.
I used to commute between our weekend place in Cumbria, our weekday place in central Newcastle and daily lecturing on Teeside - A66 over the top, but if it was closed due to snow (they have gates to close the A66 dual carriageway) a massive detour back up to N/c and then over to Carlisle in dense, diverted coast to coast traffic and then then down the M6, hoping I’d get to my (then) partner’s farm before the local lane got blocked.
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That sounds like a great commute, with the right tyres.
I realised - when travelling in snow between Durham and Boro- that, while I might have invested in winter tyres and could get through pretty much anything, it was never going to work if the person in front on the B-Road hadn’t.
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Bowes bypass. They’re a sight to behold. Never seen them closed though.
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Sort of, in those days I had a MB 2.8 estate and an Alfa GTV coupe - the Alfa was usually better -much lighter and front wheel drive.
I came back back from travelling in the mid-east in '75. Rather than go straight back into a studio I took up a pal’s recommendation of life outdoors, cutting down trees
…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts
I joined the Royal Parks Dept Tree Gang. And we did sing that song.
It was the peak time of Dutch Elm desease. Taking down the 100+ year-old elms in Buck Pal Gdns was the highlight. It was Feb. I’ve never been colder. The lake froze over and the flamingos on the island made a break for the border. Legs akimbo! So comical! The bloke who fed them got to driving across the ice on a small tractor, with his buckets of shrimps.
We were there for about three weeks. We were not allowed to even use wheel barrows to carry the timber off the lawns, let alone a quad + trailer. Everything carried on foot. The head groundsman, with the unlikely name of Fred Nutbeam, used to ride round on a bike, with a 12-bore in hand, shooting at the crows.
“You lads mind my edges!” he used to bellow.
Her Maj appeared every day at about 4p.m. in headscarf + 2 x black labs. The corgis + the 3-legged dorgi had been ‘watered’ in the morning by a footman in full gloves and tails, nose in the air.
Then I damaged my back. I actually heard the ‘crack’. At Christmas, the 8 million members of the TGWU clubbed together for a facecloth and small hand towel - in polyester.
But I learned how to climb a rope and tie the marvellous ‘Prussic’ knot.
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Did you take advantage of the oasis of Stainmore Cafe as you passed over the top? As Stainmore was my direct route to the West of Scotland from Nottingham back in the 60s, and later, it was a welcome light in the murk or snow. To walk in there in mid winter and find a blazing log fire to warm not just the cockles but everything else as well. Just for half an hour, partly to satisfy the Ministry but equally to get back into a poorly heated cab before it got frozen on the inside was simply heaven to us drivers.
Update: well, we had a very small amount of snow two days ago, which then melted, and it tried snowing on and off yesterday when I was out back in the wood, but the snow line is much higher now, about 800m+. On the positive side, Super-Besse ski resort and the whole of the Sancy range is now fully functional and looks magnificent in this morning’s sunshine !
Photo?! Please 