[Leica] But I'm not ready!!!!

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 10:39 AM -0700 11/27/06, GREG LORENZO wrote:
>Klein, Peter A writes in part:
>
>>  Hoppy:  Too much information. Thank you for sharing.   :-)  In our
>>  defense (defence), in Seattle we don't have common spiders with the
>>  toxicity of cobras, and we can swim in creeks without being eaten
>>  by a croc.
>
>Especially like the fact there are no snakes that are afraid of snakes.
>
>>  And then there are the people next to me at a traffic light who spin
>>  their wheels to get going, and slide horizontally towards me. . .
>>
>>  Greg, I'm sure the syndrome is the same in Vancouver, and that it
>>  thoroughly amuses the less temperate parts of Canada.
>
>Made the national news as predicted last night. What no traction? Floor it!
>
>Fun to watch unless someone gets hurt.

Here in Vancouver we had about 8 to 10 inches. Lots of things don't work 
today.

A large part of the problem is that that basic 
design of streets and byways don't take snow into 
account. So when snow falls, slopes are too steep 
and roads too narrow often to be useable. Also, 
the city really doesn't have snowplows. It has 
some general duty trucks that a blade can be 
attached to, but that's not quite the same, and 
there are too few.

Then there's the type of snow. I grew up in 
northern Albera, and when it snowed it was 
generally a lot colder than when it snows in 
Vancouver. When snow is falling at -15 or 25?C, 
it blows around a bit and then gets packed, but 
traction is actually very good. When you drive on 
packed snow or ice at -50?, it's not a whole lot 
slipperier than pavement.

In Vancouver (and Seattle) when it snows it's 
usually between 3 or 4?C above and  zero, so it 
comes down and melts for a bit, then as it gets 
slushier, enough insulation builds up so that it 
stays as snow on top, but the bottom is still 
slush. If that builds up to 10 inches like today, 
it's super slippery. Today its colder, so the 
slush will become ice with fairly wet snow on 
top. About as slippery as it gets.

So: a big dump of snow, steep hills and narrow 
streets, everything right around zero, and a 
populace that only drives in snow an average of a 
couple of days a year and therefore gets no 
experience nor prepares their cars properly, and 
you have a mess.

BTW, when I drove in Edmonton and the first snow 
arrived, if it was a big dump and close to zero 
things were nutty as well until people relearned 
their snow driving skills.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
   /|\      Wulff Photography & Design
  /###\   mailto:henningw@archiphoto.com
  |[ ]|     http://www.archiphoto.com