[WR] Northampton - 1/3/2018.
 

Happy St David's Day.

Woke up to 2cm of snow over everything.
Depth at tea time 5cm.
Current temperature -2.6C.

The rest is what's it's like out there and what's happened (or not!).

Listening to tomorrow's forecast, decided to the supermarket run today
instead of the normal Friday. 3.15pm all Hell let loose, with almost
zero visibility in the white-out. Luckily I was in the shopping centre
by then.

Came out at 4.45 to an absolute mess. A couple of inches slush all over
the roads, with cars and lorries going in all directions except straight
on. Those that weren't sliding all over the place were stuck in the car
park. Absolute mayhem. [How do other countries manage to keep going with
50cm or more of the stuff? I don't remember this sort of thing in
Scotland during the 1980's. We just drove and got on with it.]

Got the bus back home, and walking back up the road turned round to see
said bus sliding all over the road at the bus terminus - a
mini-roundabout off the side of the road. That bus was very obviously
not going anywhere for some time. [It had gone by 10pm when I took the
dog out.]

Road conditions out there are somewhere between downright dangerous and
impossible. The County Council is effectively bankrupt (Section 114
Notice in force) and no roads within the Northampton town boundary have
been gritted since this cold snap started. The really main roads in the
county (M1, A43 part of, A45 part of, and A14) have been done (so they
say), but that appears to be about it. The section of the A43 that
hasn't been done has had several accidents this afternoon, and that road
is now closed while the carnage is removed.

Tesco too had it's problems. Three momentary power outages knocked out
all their computers, resulting in none of the tills or checkouts
working. Most people just abandoned their trolleys at the checkouts and
walked out. No other shops in the centre were affected. I ended up
getting the really necessary stuff at the local (bloody expensive) shop.

Looking at the conditions out there at the moment, I don't think anybody
is going to be driving out of this estate in the morning. If they do,
and the local feeder roads haven't been gritted, I don't think they will
get very far. Glad I tried to do the shopping today, because I'm sure it
won't be possible tomorrow. What a mess.

jim, Northampton.