Weather early 2009

[TC]

Another sunny day here in Ayr.  Temperature peaked at 4c.  The roads are bone dry but there is a biting east wind blowing.  In the shelter from the wind the sun actually has some heat in it.

[johnw]

'stear into the skid' etc.   

Heard that one before. Hard to do when you in a 360 degree spin at 80km/hr.

johnw

[Maggi Young]

While out for a walk with Lily, just had to stop while a  parked car slid down a sloping drive, across the pavement and into the road. Poor little car was obviously frightened, its alarm was going off   
Luckily just a tad too late for the bulk of the school children coming along the road, it all happened so quickly there could have been very nasty consequences.

[Martin Baxendale]

'stear into the skid' etc.   

Heard that one before. Hard to do when you in a 360 degree spin at 80km/hr.

johnw

You obviously have an exciting driving style, John. Hope you didn't dent the Aston Martin.      Not many people doing 80km/hr up and down our road today, just sliding slowly around. The four wheel drivers didn't half look smug though.

[Anthony Darby]

Of course, you have to know if you have rear or front wheel drive, because opposites apply, i.e. you stear out of the skid for front wheel drive. A friend of mine 'lost it' just past the green wellie shop near Tyndrum. Hit a patch of water in his BMW M3 and the back end went. The car hit a wall and summersaulted down the road. When it finally stopped, the right way up, there was no engine or wheels left attached to what was left of the body. Both he and his friend walked out. The first thing he did was to check to see if his Rolex was scratched. Wouldn't have happened if the car had been front wheel drive, but then it certainly is a good advert for the strength of the 'cage'.

[Maggi Young]

One 4x4 driver I saw today was certainly feeling safe enough... she was chatting on her phone.
I''d book the b*****s, I really would.

[Martin Baxendale]

A couple of pics from the very snowy Stroud Valley this evening (actually from around the woods in an area of a small side-valley near our house called The Heavens, where everyone and their dog was out sledging yesterday and today):

[Martin Baxendale]

I was very tempted when posting the second pic in my last posting to label it 'View across my back lawn to the shrubbery and woodland garden'. Talk about wishful thinking!   

[johnw]

You obviously have an exciting driving style, John. Hope you didn't dent the Aston Martin.      Not many people doing 80km/hr up and down our road today, just sliding slowly around.

Most cars you see in the ditch here are 4 x 4's.

The worst driving weather here is the first light snowfall of the year,. The ground is warm and the snow turns to ice as the tires compress it.

My spin: the Aston Marton is fine.  Actually it was a very light snow that had melted a half an hour before. I had just left a friend's greenhouse and was driving along the coast, came to a curve where there was snow across the highway, it had sneaked through a windbreak. The pavement was wet, car went into a vicious spin and luckily I found myself stopped in the driveway of the only house on the road. One second later a gravel truck passed me in the opposite direction, the very side of the road that I was then on.

Been a bit cautious ever since, I wasn't so young then.

johnw

[TC]

About 40 years ago we were going to Benmore in January, after a period of heavy frost.  I was bowling along on a dry sunny day towards Loch Eck, doing about 50mph, when I came round a bend and bumped up onto a solid sheet of ice covering the road.  I took my foot off the accelerator to slow down gradually, when I hit a patch of lumpy ice left by a logging tractor coming on to the road.  I started a swerve, instinctively hit the brakes, and I was away for a toboggan ride.  A bend was coming up fast and I had a choice of putting the car through the trees into the Loch or into the ditch.  I chose the ditch and amazingly the car ploughed a furrow and stopped with no damage. I thought that it had taken about 30 seconds to do this and Cindy said that one minute we were driving along and then we were in a ditch.  She hadn't time to get frightened.

We continued on our way and spent the day in Benmore.  On the way back, we ran into a blizzard and just made it before the road was closed.  When I got back to Glasgow I could not get out of the car for 15 minutes due to delayed shock and whiplash effect.  I learned a salutary lesson that day - the follies of youth !!

The next time we were in the same spot, I realised that in mid-winter, the sun could not shine on the road because of the mountains on either side of the loch, so the ice could not melt sufficiently before the temperature dropped below freezing at night.

[Martin Baxendale]

Tom and John, your close shaves reminded me of one we had in Cornwall a few years ago. With two small children in the car, we were following another car down a narrowish lane when the driver in front slammed on his brakes and did an emergency stop at the entrance to a farm shop advertising fruit. I was going to slam into the back of him if I hit the brakes and couldn't go round him as he started to indicate right into the farm shop driveway after doing his emergency 'ooh, a farm shop!' stop and I'd have hit him side on if he turned. I had to swerve onto the grass verge, which then sloped up so that our car ended up alongside him  with our wheels level with his windows. The look on his passenger's face as we appeared on top of the bank next to her was one of sheer horror. I just reversed back down onto the road, and drove on past him after a couple of appropriate hand gestures.

[Carol Shaw]

More snow overnight and the temperature is not supposed to go above freezing today with more snow forecast... still it is a piece of cake in comparison to my memories of Aberdeenshire in the mid 70s.

[Anthony Darby]

-6^oC at 7.45 a.m. today.

[Paul T]

Howdy All,

A rather rare visit here to the SRGC for me at the moment.  Just dropping in for a couple of minutes (literally) to post here in case any Aussies are reading....

Commiserations to those in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales who have been having the dreadful heatwave.  Thankfully we haven't been as bad as many of you (Pat... 45'C!!    Ouch!  ).... we've only had 39.6, 40.0 and 40.0'c the last 3 days.  Darn hot enough for me though.  At least we haven't had the dreadful bushfires that have ravaged Victoria, with around 85 I think now confirmed dead and close to 700 homes lost..... here's hoping that the NSW fires don't add to that toll as well.  For those who are interested.... Australia was forecast as officially the hottest place on the planet for this weekend.  It hit 48'C in western parts of Vic and NSW yesterday (Saturday).  Our 40'C was bad enough here thank you!!  Melbourne had it's hottest day on record yesterday (that is 150 years of records) at 46.4'C I think.

And to the opposite extremes... up north in Queensland, more than 60% of the state is flood affected, with some areas having record floods today, on top of record floods on Thursday/Friday after more torrential rain yesterday.  Our country is a bunch of extremes, that is for sure.

So.... to anyone who is affected by any of these my heart, and those of so many others, is with you.  Hopefully none of our readers are directly affected or know people who have been directly affected by these fires.

And... my heart goes out to all those those stranded in London etc by the snowstorms causing traffic chaos etc.  The world is a very mixed up place right at the moment weather-wise.

Hopefully I'll get time to get back up here regularly again soon.  This will be my only post for this evening, and in fact the only topic I will be reading.  Too darn hot to sit at the computer, even at 10pm. 

All the very best everyone. 

[Carol Shaw]

Temperature has now inched up to 0˚C still with the sun shine it looks bonny and David and I enjoyed a walk in the Culbins earlier. He is now labeling up 200 plus packets of seed sent to us by the Bainbridges' as he is giving a talk on growing for showing on Wednesday - well we 'think' he is, sort of depends on the weather to be honest