The snow that never came...

The following is a story I wrote for DIT News, the newspaper at my college. Because the paper's date of publication was put back a few times, this was actually finished over a week before the paper actually came out, and I spent the intervening period hoping that it wouldn't snow and render my story useless.

Getting to college this winter may be easier than before due to a concerted drive by the council and Dublin’s public transport systems to avert the travel chaos which brought the city to a standstill last year.

Dublin City Council has stockpiled over 4,000 tonnes of salt in preparation for the expected freeze this Christmas.

However, these provisions may yet prove unnecessary after an uncharacteristically warm November.

Last year’s snowfall caused traffic disruption throughout the country, with motorists in Dublin city reporting journeys across the city taking several hours. It also left conditions extremely hazardous for pedestrians.

This has prompted the city council to take special measures as part of their winter maintenance plan in order to stop a repeat of such scenes.

Some of the resources made available to fight the harsh conditions include ten salt spreaders and two snow ploughs to clear the streets, as well as 17 smaller spreaders and ten small snow ploughs for use on footpaths.

The council will also assign 688 personnel to severe weather duties for the winter.

Salt will be stockpiled at 22 locations across the city. However, not all of the city will be kept clear. Priority will be given to major roads and footpaths in the city centre.

These priority routes were agreed with Dublin Bus, which was only able to operate limited services during last year’s whiteout. 

This year Dublin Bus have procured salt spreaders which will be available in each depot, and have engaged a JCB Contractor to clear depots at short notice if weather conditions deteriorate quickly.

Traffic management CCTV screens have been installed in Dublin Bus’ Central Control Centre and will allow staff to monitor changes in weather in road conditions across the city.

An inter-agency plan has also been agreed allowing the use of tickets on other forms of public transport, such as the Luas, which saw daily passenger numbers double during last winter as its service was largely unaffected by the snow. This year they have added a severe weather response team and are providing a monitoring service linked to Met Éireann forecasts.

“Hopefully passengers will have no cause to see some of the other preparations that have been going on during the year, such as the mini snow cleaning machines for Luas stops, the hand portable salt spreaders, the road portable salt spreaders, the stock piles of salt and the red snow plough,” press officer Dervla Brophy said.

However, the expected snowfall may not come. 2011 saw the warmest November on record for 150 years, with an average temperature of 12 °c recorded at Met Éireann’s weather station in the Phoenix Park.

Peter Lynch, Met Éireann Professor of Meteorology at UCD, said that any forecasts of a White Christmas may be premature.

“Forecasts beyond the ten-day range are effectively useless. This is consistent with the underlying principle that the atmospheric flow is chaotic: predictions are very sensitive to tiny changes in the starting conditions.

“I do not know whether we will have a White Christmas or not, and neither does anyone else. It is too soon to say,” he said.

(The story appeared in the paper with a period replacing the comma after the final 'say'. As a sub, I was... not best pleased.)