First Snow

We had our first real snow storm! On Friday and Saturday last week over 45 cm of snow fell on Vancouver, and it transformed the city. Snow is a pretty big deal. It's beautiful but makes it really hard to get around.

Katie went to a course in North Van on Friday morning, leaving home with some light snow falling. During the day the snow became heavier and heavier until when she was finished, there was a serious amount of snow around. All the buses were delayed, so I ventured out in the Swedish beast to rescue her. Volvo's are born in the snow, so it was in its element. Combined with some decent snow tires that were on the car when we bought it (I want to keep calling it a "him", maybe he needs a name... Anders? Olof?) it was like driving on a regular road. Nothing like the experience with my Subaru on slick Bridgestones in the snow at Ruapehu.

There are two classifications of tires for winter driving: Winter tires, and Mud & Snow tires. Winter tires are the best for driving on snow and ice, as they're made from a particular compound that doesn't get stiff in cold temperatures. They're not so good for summer driving though, as the soft rubber decreases their performance on warm, dry roads, as well as wearing faster. Mud & Snow tires are the next step down and mainly rely on their tread pattern to deliver good grip in the snow. The lowest tier is All-Seasons tires, which are just bad at everything. You have to have one of these tire designations on your car to drive to Whistler.

I saw lots of other cars having problems on my drive. A particularly funny moment was watching several small hatchbacks attempt to exit the motorway by an unusually steep offramp. The traffic was very heavy, so I had time to enjoy their several attempted run-ups before they eventually gave up and rejoined the traffic. You could easily spot cars without snow tires, even driving on the highway there were people wheel-spinning all over the place. It was a little concerning.

The critical role that snowploughs play in keeping the city running was undeniable. On roads that had been ploughed, you could see the lane markings and traffic behaved reasonably normally. On streets like the small one we live on that don't get regularly cleared (and even on major roads if it's been some time since the plough has been there) the traffic slows to a crawl and generally reduces to one lane in each direction regardless of the size of the road. Everyone just drives in the tracks of the car in front.

The downside to ploughing the roads is that the snow gets piled up at the sides, and makes walking around particularly unpleasant. Once the snow starts to melt, the intersections turn into swamps, because the snow and ice are blocking the drains for the meltwater to run into. Everything becomes slushy and brown.

It's quite amazing how quickly everything returns to normal! From normal, dry roads on Thursday, to deep snow on Friday, and finally back to regular dry roads again on Monday! It's equally amazing that by the following Friday there are little patches of unmelted snow, even though it's been raining since Tuesday!

You can see more of our photos in our shared album here: https://adobe.ly/2F5g3qr