Are there too many weather warnings?

I'm not going to quote a post, the thread is too fast moving to make it appropriate.

We live in Ashbourne, South East Meath, and I have been very happy today to be able to stay indoors and watch the snow fall all day, and even happier that I didn't have to venture out on to the roads. I was out yesterday for a while, I was confident that I could drive safely in the conditions, I did a lot of driving in the UK and USA in snow, so it's not a new experience, and that was what happened.

Having said that, in a couple of places, the vehicle I was driving twitched some, despite the fact that I was driving as if I had a wine glass strapped to the bottom of my shoe, and I didn't want to break it. I was driving on minor roads, which have deep ditches on either side that are very full of water right now, so going off the road into a ditch would have been a big issue.

I'd seen before I left the town that things were not ideal, a moron in a BMW 535 was fishtailing all over the place in relatively benign conditions, hopefully, he will have seen the error of his ways before he hit someone else, but I doubt it, unfortunately.

Once out of town, the road conditions changed, there was no worn snow with tracks down to the tarmac, the minor roads were completely covered, so that meant switching to 4WD, which made things a lot more stable, and that's with All Terrain tyres fitted that are snow rated, so the grip etc was about as good as it was going to get, and even then, it was twitchy, so care was needed.

Then there were the wind gusts that blew up a cloud of powder snow. When that happened, 3 times in the space of less than a mile, there was no option other than to stop until it cleared, as it was impossible to see the road, or the road margins.

That was yesterday morning, since then, we've had another night of snow, and it's been snowing all day here, which has at least doubled the snow on the ground, and that's before Emma arrives,and I am very happy that I didn't need to go out today, and even more happy that my wife, who is my daughter's child care, didn't have to take her Fiat Seicento out on to roads that would have been risky for a car of that size and weight, in order for my daughter to get to her work in Drogheda.

Overnight, we're due to get even more, and if we get the sort of snow that Prime Time are talking about, I won't even be able to get my vehicle out of the drive, or out of our estate, as there will be no way to get up on top of the snow cover if it's as deep as they are suggesting.

Red for this area today was not over the top, if the normal traffic had been out and about today, there would have been a massive number of accidents, simply because too many people don't have the beginnings of a clue how to drive on snow. I can remember similar significant snow in Dublin in the late 80's, and the number of accidents as a result was only incredible, and there are way more vehicles on the roads now than there were then, and driving standards have not improved in the intervening period, and way too many people are just too impatient for the conditions that are happening with this weather. I saw the results of the 2010 snow, I was out in it every day doing deliveries, and the number of accidents that happened in that snow was unreal, because people would not drive appropriately, and I've seen nothing to indicate that anything has changed for too many people.

Saturday could be interesting!

The South West of the UK was put under Red status late yesterday There are now reports that "major incidents" are under way in the Avon and Somerset area, with over 100 vehicles trapped on a section of the A303 at Ilminster, and there are also reports of problems on the A303 in Wiltshire, where vehicles are trapped on a section where there are significant hills, which has resulted in blockages, and people trapped in vehicles. I know the area well, I used to live in that part of the world, and this storm system has caused massive problems over a wide area, which has significantly stretched the emergency services.

The clear RED warnings here to get off the roads have hopefully meant that emergency services here are not being stretched to deal with similar incidents here, for which we should be very grateful.