I think we must be quite close - this is what happened to us too. I’m loving it, and I’m unreasonably excited that my town made a special mention on the BBC’s ‘OHGOD the weather’s shite’ special report this evening. We have 28 cm, it’s official, the BBC said so. Looking forward to a second day of fun in the snow with a toddler and a labrador tomorrow, instead of work!
I’d like to see a car built especially for Canada some day, with adaptations for our particular conditions here. My car spent yesterday in a garage, getting it’s tune-up, and when they put it back out in the cold, it was about half an hour before the inside of the windows defrosted enough to see through them. I’d also make the block heaters easier to plug in - I’ve spent far too much time struggling to get a tight plug plugged in, kneeling in the snow and freezing. And drains for the foot wells. And better heating for feet and hands.
ETA: And tires that actually ARE all season, and one of those season is snow and ice.
Reminds me of that old joke.
How can you tell a volkswagon bug driver?
Their feet are burned and thier hands and ears are frostbitten.
I almost bought an engine preheater for my 914. It bolted to the bottom of the oil pan.
There’s a difference between climate and weather.
Unseasonably warm temperatures are climate.
Unseasonably cold temperatures are just weather 
I hate the cold, but I’ll take it being a bit colder than normal this winter over getting twice or more the normal snow like the last two winters (this December 16", December 08 27", December 07 45") and I really hope this pattern holds for a long while. I have no idea what happened last weekend - it snowed TH-SUN almost all of the time, but so lightly we ended up with less than 8" total. So weird.
When I first courted Mrs. Plant, the drive from Logan airport to Nashua at dusk in October, still warm in my native Arkansas, revealed dark piles alongside the freeway…er, “parkway”.
“Are they working on the roads, Baby, with all that gravel?”
“That is snow” she simpered.
Moses and Aaron on a stick.
Here’s it’s normal moderate winter weather. The cold seems to lose its potency when it hits Toronto, and all these storms you mention about must be south, west, or east of me. Or maybe we’re just putting out too much hot air?
Yeesh!!! It’s cold here!
The news says that it’s 24F and won’t be above freezing through Sunday. We’re also looking at 1-2" of snow tonight.
This might not sound too bad to those of you north of the M-D, but here in the mid-South, our homes aren’t as well equipped for this stuff as yours and our highway crews have less equipment, making getting around a PITA.
Y’all stay warm.
It’s weird, we had a serious cold spell that lasted nearly a week back in early December, to the point where my car wouldn’t start for three days (thanks to the outlet I had my block heater in that had reset itself and was off and I didn’t notice…stupid outlet!). We had lows around -14F for a few nights there, and highs barely hitting two digits. But my house was built for this, apparently; no problem at all with my pipes or anything. Due to a 16-hour blackout (at my house, anyway) over Christmas I had no water since I’m on a well, but again, once the power came back on, a few minutes later I had water again. And I’m quite sure it was near or just below freezing INSIDE when the power came back!
I lived in various warm places for most of my life. Ya’ll have my sympathy, honest, even if I suddenly find “OMG it’s below FREEZING!” kind of funny. At least we sort of expect it to be cold here. But seriously, layers. You’d be surprised how quickly you might adapt if you ended up in a real winter climate. It only took me a few days, really; I always haaaaaaated heat but sort of accepted it as inevitable. August no longer inspires dread. I still laugh at the people here who bitch about the heat when it gets upwards of 80F though. I mean, it’s so DRY here! 90 even is not a problem, especially since there’s only a few days a year it gets that warm. And I don’t have, or need, AC.
Buses were cancelled here in Dublin from 3pm yesterday. A lot of people had to walk miles home. It wasn’t even that snowy, just all the roads had turned to ice.
I had to walk. Real pain, literally as I’ve a bad back(had spinal surgery last year) and by the time I got home it was fucked and my leg felt like it was on fire.
Went to bed straight away and took some drugs and am fine again today but will be leaving work early if it looks like it will happen again over the next few days.
From Scientific American:
“…how to explain the relatively colder winters we’ve had in the latter half of this decade? Goddard attributes them to La Niña, a cyclical pattern of cold sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. La Niña in the first half of 2008, followed by a neutral period in the latter half, likely had something to do with it, Heim says, but adds that global warming is about long-term, rising temperature trends over time. “It’s kind of like a drunk driver,” Heim says. "The car is weaving back and forth, but it’s still progressing forward.”
Fleet, right? Yes I am very close - that’s my local station.
My journey to work, which usually takes about an hour and a half, took SIX AND A HALF hours today. I carefully shovelled the 10in of snow off my driveway yesterday before it froze, so I was able to get to the station in time for an earlier-than-usual train. The train only left 20 mins late, so I was on course to arrive to work early.
Then there was an electrical fire beside the track. A fire? It was -10C last night, and still -7C when I got to the station! That knocked the power out, which took 45 mins to clear.
Then there was a backlog of trains so we crawled along and covered about 100 yards in 20 minutes.
Then my train broke down.
Then the train in front of mine caught fire. 
We eventually got pushed into Waterloo by another train, arriving four hours late. I’m staying at my sister-in-law’s in London tonight!
I have no horror stories - luckily the midwest is pretty much used to snow and cold. But its gonna be really really (like Canada :p) cold on Fri/Sat. Like daytime highs not to get above 0, and night time lows around -20 (F of course). And I know IA isn’t even getting it the worst, but still this sucks.
I may be used to winter, but this is just crap. :mad:
Coo, mine too 
sympathy for your journey - that sounds horrendous. I still haven’t bothered to leave my road yet.
Yep-Al Gore was right! It is obviously “Global Warming”.
The sooner people wise up, the better-this con man (Gore) will turn out to be the fool of the century!
I’m officially ticked.
The weather guys here in central Mississippi have been predicting doom and gloom for the last week. The grocery stores were packed to the rafters with people who were shopping for several days worth of being stuck in the house. We were told anywhere from snow to a slushy mix to ice.
What did we get? RAIN. I was looking forward to playing outside in the winter weather. Playing in the cold rain is no fun at all.
Its so bad in Miami its snowing Iguanas !
Safe for work
Hah, yeah, I saw a kid in Basic who wasn’t drinking water from his canteen all afternoon because he wasn’t thirsty.
He wasn’t thirsty in San Antonio, Texas.
In July.
In starched BDUs.
Fucking dumbass pointed to his non-sweating as proof that he didn’t need water, and those of us from Texas pointed out that that is a red flag warning sign of severe dehydration.
He argued for a few seconds more before he passed out.:smack: Fortunately, the guy behind him caught him and didn’t let him crack his skull on the concrete.
Incidentally, along with dressing in layers, don’t forget to hydrate. Just because it’s cold doesn’t mean you don’t need to drink water all of a sudden. Drink your coffee and tea and hot cocoa and beer and whatever else you need to stay warm of course, but also drink water!
I’ve got this de-icing spray for my car. It doesn’t do any good if the ice is caked on, but for the thin annoying stuff it’s a lot faster than using the scraper. Also, if your car is covered in snow, clear off as much of it as you can, including the top of the car (so you don’t trail clouds of snow behind you for the drivers following behind you). Also make sure you clear your headlights and signals, and the little vents under your windsheild wipers (these vents help keep your windsheild from fogging up when you crank the heat to Pheonix In July inside your car).
Oh, and a trick my fiance taught me: You know how you can pull your windsheild wiper blades up and they stay that way? Do that before it snows when you park the car, so the snow and ice doesn’t build up on top of them.
It wouldn’t bother me if it were just outside. I’m not out there often enough for it to matter. But my heater, just like everyone else’s I know, doesn’t blow warm air when it’s really cold out. Sure, it’s warmer than outside, but it’s often cooler than the room. It drives me insane. All heaters should be able to handle temperatures above 0[sup]o[/sup]F (18[sup]o[/sup]C).