There was some highly interesting weather over the UK this past weekend. A great chunk of freezing air sat over the north and a warm, wet front rolled in from the south. Where they collided heavy snow and torrential rain followed.
This might have been purely of academic interest to me, but fate decreed otherwise. For Mrs C and I were having a few days away, staying in the unexpectedly delightful Llandudno and the weather bomb struck the night before we planned to depart homewards. Amidst increasingly dire warnings on the media, I made various contingency plans. If all the roads were blocked, with reports of airlifted supplies being dropped onto those trapped in their cars - we would stay put in our hotel. If it was possible to leave but treacherous conditions might be encountered en route - find a welcoming cafe and indulge in a really long lunch. Otherwise charge up the mobile phones, stock some food and water and drive on in hope.
We woke on Sunday morning to find the town under snow but rain was now in charge and there was a few cm of slush on the ground, neither the deep snow nor the glassy and deadly ice that I had feared. With nothing worse than wet trainers, I was able to drive out of the town and though the worst hazards were fog on the A5, coupled with idiots who insisted on driving in the middle lanes of the motorways despite the empty inner lanes up which I was bearing down on them, we made it home.
We planned to go shopping on Monday morning. That one failed pretty fast because the rain kept up all night and all the roads into our little village were flooded. Environment agency live monitoring of the River Alne showed it to be close to a record high for the past 20 years.
We were lucky. Had we planned to begin our trip on Sunday, we would have had to abort. Had the bad weather hit a few hours earlier we might have got to within a half mile of home but been unable to go further. As it was, I think we got away with it.
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