Wintry conditions brings road chaos to Lancashire roads (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Wintry conditions brings road chaos to Lancashire roads
8:39am Tuesday 6th December 2011 in Haslingden
WHITE BLANKET A lollipop man stops traffic on a snowy Hibson Road, Nelson
SLEET and some snowfall in East Lancashire has closed roads this morning.
The A6177 Grane Road, Haslingden, was shut due to ice and snow making driving conditions hazardous.
The A682 Manchester Road, Burnley, was also covered in snow.
A collision on the M65 eastbound carriageway between junction two at Clayton Brook and junction three Riley Green lead to rush hour tailbacks from 8am.
A Citroen Saxo with four occupants span off Bolton Road, Withnell, in slippery conditions at 11.45pm last night.
Two teenage girls had to be cut from the rear of the car after it hit a tree.
They were taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries.
Comments(15)
ghanto
says...
9:12am Tue 6 Dec 11
its hundred times better then last year so far
Luddite
says...
9:28am Tue 6 Dec 11
I wonder what the going rate is?
burner
says...
9:35am Tue 6 Dec 11
kate11 wrote:Every time it snows, such comments are made. Then some sensible person, who KNOWS the facts , says gritted roads require certain conditions to be present AFTER the gritter has been along.
The council say these roads have been gritted but I say not well enough obviously. Why are we never prepared? If they are trying to conserve the grit and not putting enough down they are playing with people lives!!!!!!!!!!
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I am not that knowledgible person ; but you, kate, are one who clearly does not understand the science.
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Of course roads were gritted last night - the Council said so yesterday. It's not a guy on the back of a pick-up with a shovel.
HelmshoreGuy
says...
10:56am Tue 6 Dec 11
There was heavy hail stone over night and a tiny bit of snow, temperatures were above freezing, the approach roads had almost no snow on them. Last winter I drove over it every day after heavy snow and temperatures down to -15 without problems.
If last nights weather triggered a closure then this road is going to be closed every other day this winter. Considering the roads importance it needs to be open!
GAC
says...
11:44am Tue 6 Dec 11
lets just hope it doesnt cost someone there life.
kate11
says...
12:04pm Tue 6 Dec 11
Slimplynth
says...
12:57pm Tue 6 Dec 11
nwmonkey
says...
1:02pm Tue 6 Dec 11
nwmonkey
says...
1:04pm Tue 6 Dec 11
kate11
says...
1:36pm Tue 6 Dec 11
soup123
says...
4:20pm Tue 6 Dec 11
Open_Mind
says...
5:16pm Tue 6 Dec 11
If it had been gritted overnight then it would have been different.
(typically this road takes me five – ten minutes depending on the traffic (15 tops – if you get stuck behind a bus) and is very convenient for cutting out the M65 connection to M66 )
s_smith
says...
8:15pm Tue 6 Dec 11
.
Black ice usually forms when the surface temperature of the road is much lower than the ambient air temperature. If the air temperature was 0c, the road surface temperature could have been much much lower. Also dont forget that rain/sleet dilutes the salt and running water washes it completely away.
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Usually gritting is fairly effective down to a ROAD SURFACE temperature of around -6c. Below that, its effectiveness is reduced until around -10c when it is not effective at all.
.
Putting grit down on black ice has little effect on clearing it. All it does is the particles of slat melt the small bit they land on and sit in a small blob of brine. The rest of the ice sheet is unaffected. This effect can be best seen on a frosty, yet gritted surface, where the salt sits in little black spots surrounded by frost.
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It is the same with snow - gritting does not keep a road free of snow as the snow, if it is falling heavily enough, just settles on a layer of slushy brine which gets prgressively more diluted as more snow falls, melts etc etc. Traffic is also needed to keep the brine mix moving and melting the slush layer. Overnight snow, when there is little traffic around is the usual cause of problems, as there is not enough traffic to keep the mix moving and hence the snow settles, even on a heavily gritted surface. Even this can be seen on rural routes in places where grit is piled by the roadside - the snow settles and covers even these piles of salt.
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Dont be fooled - gritting is NOT the miracle cure for keeping ice off the roads and anyone who claims it is, is simply an idiot.
nolando
says...
1:28am Fri 9 Dec 11
kate11 says...
9:05am Tue 6 Dec 11