Snow brings Germany to a halt.

parsi

According to German TV snowfalls in the North of the country have caused chaos. All public transport in Rostock is suspended. Large numbers of trains have been cancelled or are experiencing severe delays. The Elbe and its associated canals are frozen solid.

All this in a country which is supposedly well capable of dealing with snow... or so we are told.

Interestingly last night "Brisant" on MDR was showing a report on the extent of uncleared streets and footpaths in Berlin. It was quite significant as can be seen if you look at any webcam that shows Berlin streets.

Amusingly this too is in a city that supposedly mobilises vast numbers of snow cleaning units... or so we are told.

Absurdum

omg I'm ashamed to be German, this would never happen in somewhere like Ireland, etc.

amacachi

If this snow happened in Germany or France they'd cope with it, but because it's Ireland we can't handle it.

opr

Comparing what is happening in Germany to what happened in Ireland is so ****ing retarded.

murphaph

The sun is splitting the stones here this morning and it didn't snow yesterday. Berlin clears the important streets. Side streets may be left alone, but pavements are usually just "gestreut" rather than cleared of the compacted snow. This entails spreading stone chippings onto the compacted snow/ice which provides enough grip to walk on. Berlin experiences a truly arctic climate every winter though, so it would be a mammoth task to clear every single footpath and sidestreet, practically impossible. Rostock is a 2.5 hour drive from here though, due north so things could be bad up there.

To be fair according to this article, this is the coldest spell to hit Hamburg in over a decade. I think Ireland's public transport would probably shut down completely in the same weather, if Ireland had public transport lol.

Angry Troll

yeah, northern germany does not normally get much real winter weather…close to the sea and all, a bit like ireland…so they are not totally prepared either for an extreme winter with the alster freezing over at hamburg and loads of snow in berlin and all that…
severe winters are more common in the south of germany…even though this one seems to be extreme even by southern standards…and every system has its saturation point. seems salt is getting scarce in many places in germany too…

the difference is that ireland basically came to a standstill after just a few days of relatively mild freezing (did the liffey freeze over?) and a tiny bit of snow…and then the water issues and all that…

article and some pics from germay and eastern europe here: www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,673947,00.html

Metrostar

murphaph wrote: »

The sun is splitting the stones here this morning and it didn't snow yesterday. Berlin clears the important streets. Side streets may be left alone, but pavements are usually just "gestreut" rather than cleared of the compacted snow. This entails spreading stone chippings onto the compacted snow/ice which provides enough grip to walk on. Berlin experiences a truly arctic climate every winter though, so it would be a mammoth task to clear every single footpath and sidestreet, practically impossible. Rostock is a 2.5 hour drive from here though, due north so things could be bad up there.

To be fair according to this article, this is the coldest spell to hit Hamburg in over a decade. I think Ireland's public transport would probably shut down completely in the same weather, if Ireland had public transport lol.

It has been snowing and freezing here in Amsterdam for the last 6 weeks. Nobody expected such a severe winter.

whosedaddy?

Metrostar wrote: »

It has been snowing and freezing here in Amsterdam for the last 6 weeks. Nobody expected such a severe winter.

At least you might get an Elfstedentocht this year....

murphaph

Just to put it in context, I'm just back from a stroll and we walked across the river Spree near this spot today. The river has been frozen solid for weeks now. The city is still functioning.

ardmacha

The river has been frozen solid for weeks now.

That would have been useful in the 80's, you could have wandered over to the Reichstag from Mitte.

Cookie_Monster

parsi wrote: »

The Elbe and its associated canals are frozen solid.

I suspect this means its probably -25 or so and has snowed to a depth of 5-6 feet.

Not much you can do in those circumstances IMO regardless of how well you can normally deal with 1-2 feet of snow

murphaph

ardmacha wrote: »

That would have been useful in the 80's, you could have wandered over to the Reichstag from Mitte.

You'd have to hop over a certain wall first In seriousness, I'm sure the GDR used ice breakers as they can appear even today on canals that are actively used for transportation (lots of stuff like building materials, sand etc. comes into berlin by canal barge and gets loaded onto trucks here, rather than trucking 100 lorry loads of it from wherever it comes. My local frozen canal is actually still in use, but I've only seen a barge on it once but I know they send scrap steel from car dismantling etc. along it on barges out of the city.

kwinabeeste

rpo wrote: »

Comparing what is happening in Germany to what happened in Ireland is so ****ing retarded.

Correct. and comparing what happened in Ireland in January to what normally happens in Germany is also equally silly. Extremes of Weather cause issues regardless of the relative ease at some areas would deal with it. Siberia would probably deal with the German sitaution relatively easy, because they are used to it.

The ESB helped put back parts of the French power grid about 10 years ago because they are experts with the windy weather on the Atlantic impacting the Irish grid

popebenny16

parsi wrote: »

According to German TV snowfalls in the North of the country have caused chaos. All public transport in Rostock is suspended. Large numbers of trains have been cancelled or are experiencing severe delays. The Elbe and its associated canals are frozen solid.

All this in a country which is supposedly well capable of dealing with snow... or so we are told.

Interestingly last night "Brisant" on MDR was showing a report on the extent of uncleared streets and footpaths in Berlin. It was quite significant as can be seen if you look at any webcam that shows Berlin streets.

Amusingly this too is in a city that supposedly mobilises vast numbers of snow cleaning units... or so we are told.

I will never, ever, belive it again now.

What was your point again?

Angry Troll

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

I suspect this means its probably -25 or so and has snowed to a depth of 5-6 feet.

Not much you can do in those circumstances IMO regardless of how well you can normally deal with 1-2 feet of snow

yep...really extreme winter conditions lead to disruptions anywhere...that's basically normal...and of course “extreme” is a relative term…and truth be told, in many regions in germany they may have relaxed a tad too much after a couple of milder winters in the recent past and are now struggling to catch up…
and to those who still like to compare countries...i cannot remember the liffey being frozen solid during the recent cold snap...

Brien

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

I suspect this means its probably -25 or so and has snowed to a depth of 5-6 feet.

Not much you can do in those circumstances IMO regardless of how well you can normally deal with 1-2 feet of snow

you are so right, I was talking to my german friend over new year, they managed quite well with the -25 degrees. When the snow is higher than your snow plough you are in trouble, and she was nearer the centre of the country.

Angry Troll

some more winter pics from germany... http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-51380.html

Stroke Politics

Went to Copenhagen last weekend, and arrived there in the middle of the snow on Friday night. The every-20-minutes rail link from the airport was crippled, and about 6 snowploughs were working away until about 3 in the morning on the main thoroughfare and square that we could see from our hotel room.

About 6 inches fell on Sunday morning, but trains worked as usual, and flights left on time. There were an army of snow ploughs at the airport, they seemed at one point to be conducting some kind of balletic choreography session on the tarmac in front of the departures shopping area at one point. Temperature fell to -10 on Saturday night, a cold like I have never experienced ever in this country.....