A little snow had began to fall....

[dennis]

No, your eyes get confused, the lighting is blue in shadows.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Liquorice" saying something like:

I know. :) It's why I use raw mode these days - any cockups are usually within the limits of retrieval and it can appear as if I've got it right first time. 'Sgreat stuff, this digital.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Talking of underexposed, this is a series I took early Monday morning.

first one had to be photoshop'd (or rather gimped).

Not quite so dramatic snow.

[Dave Liquorice]

Typo, 3 instead of 2 in the date code, I'd have thought that was obvious...

[tony sayer]

Is that a microwave link to someplace in that last pic?..

>

[Dave Liquorice]

Wi-Fi access point antenna for Cybermoor. Its just been moved there as a new customer couldn't get a signal from it with it in its the orginal position. It's tilted down as the places it serves are in the bottom of the valley about 400' lower.

[tony sayer]

So your supplying the signals then?...

[Dave Liquorice]

er, how does that explain the blue cast over snow pictures taken with auto white enabled?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Cos the light IS very blue.

Auto white is probably not very good on snow. Go for color temp

6000-7000 if you can.. or take it all out later with photoshop etc. I took a snowy squirrel the other day. Had to go to 1600 ASA, and tart the contrast up with software. Also a wee tweak towards the red end.

[Mark]

Trouble is that the school web sites and the County Council one all went down last week because they couldn't cope with the extra traffic.

The local radio station announces the closures but only after we had to leave to take them to school!

[Mark]

Wow! Our council only gritted the major A roads.

[dennis]

The highways agency pays for major A roads to be gritted.. your council is doing nothing for you if its only the major A roads that get gritted.

[tony sayer]

In article , Mark scribeth thus

One of our local stations was phoned by some schools .. Non of them had any idea of their school local education school numbers or passwords!..

Still the station managed to phone 'em back to conform they said who they were otherwise some kids might get a gruff voiced sixth former to try it on;)...

[Mark]

No surprise there. They only seem to be interested in the city centres. Outlying areas and villages are neglected IMHO.

[Dave Liquorice]

Yep motorways and trunk roads are Highways Agency, the more strategic routes.

Have a dig about on your councils website you should be able to find what roads they grit and with what priority.

[Frank Erskine]

Our cul-de-sac and the sort of c-d-s that feeds it were never gritted until last year even though they are quite steep and exposed. I'm now quite impressed that they're gritted on a regular basis. I wonder if a councillor has come to live around here somewhere... ;-)

Today (yesterday, actually) has been quite warm, dry and sunny. Just nice for walking the dog, Pericles, for a few miles.

[Rod]

Yesterday actually found the 'roads we grit' map published by the council.

For reasons that are not entirely clear it is provided as a 34MB pdf with every tiny mark from the OS maps for the area faithfully reproduced.

And they have cut out our road (which, within the area is important), and the roads that our road feeds into at both ends, and the one alternative that is, in a sort of way, off from the middle of our road. All roads into our area are steep, some very.

Especially oddly, the route that leads from the ambulance station, fire and police stations is not being gritted.

It is no surprise that over this snowy period, I have seen several cars disappearing in the morning only to reappear a few minutes later when they can't get out of the area.

[Mark]

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! I've already done this, which is why I feel justified to moan about it. I have contacted my local councillor too FWIW. They just point me to a bland statement which states that they have identified "key routes" and they grit those. According to their map this only includes major A roads (which have been de-trunked).

They failed to answer any of my specified questions and I gave up after an exchange of several emails.

The roads that they fail to grit include routes near schools, bus routes and other steep and busy routes. Last Thursday morning the whole area gridlocked because lorries and cars were completely stuck and all the rush hour traffic backed up for miles. The Police even showed up to sort the mess out, it was that bad!

[Dave Liquorice]

This is *really* bad. I wonder how the council would like to be dragged through the courts for the rebuilding costs of a house that burnt down because the fire service couldn't attend in a timely manner. Or the loss of earnings to the dependants of some one who dies because the ambulance service couldn't attend or get to them to hospital.

Access to and from garages/bases of the emergency services, hospitals then bus stations and main bus routes should be the bits that have the highest priority and are kept as clear as possible even if that means a plough just driving around and around all night passing a given point every hour.

That's what they do up here, the Brampton Road to Alston and the roads to Nenthead and Garrigill are kept open unless things get *really* bad. "Really bad" meaning drifts >4' and snow falling/drifting such that the ploughed path through the 4' drifts fills back up in less than hour. Then the ploughs get stuck, yes it does happen.

I suggest you point your local paper at it and the national tabloids as well, though I suspect they probably have more than enough similar stories from other councils now.

[Rod]

The roads they are clearing are both narrow, winding, very steep roads up which I would not choose to drive any form of HGV - like a fire appliance. In fact, in these conditions, not even a very good 4x4.

The big one they do not clear is straight (nearly), wide and a bit less steep (and at least you get a good run-up).