sNow in CaPital Cities

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About sNow in CaPital Cities

Images of Urban Snow

All the Snow

All in London (ish)

All the Time (ish)



LONDON — A beautiful yet crippling blanket of snow fell across much of England on Monday, causing transportation nightmares but giving rise to thousands of cheery snowmen in a nation barely equipped for heavy winter weather.

Nearly a foot of snow had landed in London by midday and another solid dump was expected in what meteorologists called the heaviest snowfall in nearly two decades. Snow also caused transportation disruptions in France and Ireland, as the icy weather blew westward across Northern Europe.

It was essentially a national snow day in Britain. Most schools closed, and millions of workers were unable to make their daily commutes. The capital's entire fleet of red public buses, which carry at least 6 million people daily, were off the roads, unable to move from their garages.

London's iconic subway system suffered severe delays all day, and weary-sounding officials blamed the problems on Victorian-era engineers who apparently failed to adequately plan for heavy winter weather when they designed the world's oldest underground system. Major highways were brought to a standstill, with reports of traffic jams of more than 50 miles on the M25, the highway that rings London.

Travelers reported that people were hopping out of their cars on the jammed highways to toss snowballs at each other to pass the time.

Air travel was also a nightmare, with service at most of greater London's five major airports either suspended or severely curtailed. Runways at Heathrow Airport were closed midmorning after the nose wheels of a Cyprus Airways plane slipped off a taxiway shortly after landing. No injuries were reported.

One traveler who landed Monday morning on a flight from New York used his cellphone to call a British Broadcasting Corp. radio program and complain that he and his fellow passengers had been stuck in the plane on a taxiway for almost four hours.

Sarah Holland, a spokesman for the U.K.'s national weather service, said it was the most severe snow since 1991.

In North Wales, two climbers were killed in the severe weather on Snowdon, the highest mountain in Wales and a popular hiking destination. Emergency-services officials said ambulance service would be limited to life-threatening calls only, and hospitals urged people to delay all nonemergency visits.

But for many people, Monday was a rare chance to play in a country where deep snows are rare.

In Green Park, a tree-lined expanse alongside Buckingham Palace, people made a small army of snowmen, and others rushed up to have their photos taken next to such a rare sight.

At Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard proceeded as scheduled at 11:30 a.m. But the soldiers in their gray flannel coats were reduced to clomping and trudging in the deep snow, instead of their normal crisp marching steps.

Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company

London Snows: Robert Bridges
When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled - marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder!'
'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.