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Snow forecast, any tips or not worry?

TaffyRon

By TaffyRon
in General Boating

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TaffyRon Collaborator

TaffyRon

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How much snow can you have on the roof? How can you remove it? Salt, de icer etc? Will I need more antifreeze in my central heating back boiler system?

 

any other tips? Heard somewhere its gonna be minus 27 and the worst winter for 100 years, I know the papers make it sound worse than it is but we did have minus 12 a few years ago and im sure a foot of snow on the roof isnt much help

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dmr Veteran II

dmr

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Was this the Sun or the Daily mail?.

Up to 6 inches of snow on the roof is ok.

Between 6 and 12 inches the boat looks abandoned and so will be squatted by immigrants from Eastern Europe.

More than 12 inches and the weight of snow sinks the boat.

-27 freezes the cut solid and the ice sheet cuts the boat in half.

 

BBC weather shows no cold weather before next Friday, further ahead forecasts are fantasy.

But seriously, just keep an eye on the real forecast and if its going cold get the water tank full, poo tank empty, bags of coal on the roof, beer and food in the boat and find a good spot to get frozen in, reasonable distance from a water tap and a pub but not too close to either.

 

..............Dave

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TaffyRon Collaborator

TaffyRon

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Yeah I liveaboard, tank didnt freeze in 2010, doesnt the snow weigh the boat down? My outlets sit a tad close tut water

Was this the Sun or the Daily mail?.

Up to 6 inches of snow on the roof is ok.

Between 6 and 12 inches the boat looks abandoned and so will be squatted by immigrants from Eastern Europe.

More than 12 inches and the weight of snow sinks the boat.

-27 freezes the cut solid and the ice sheet cuts the boat in half.

 

BBC weather shows no cold weather before next Friday, further ahead forecasts are fantasy.

But seriously, just keep an eye on the real forecast and if its going cold get the water tank full, poo tank empty, bags of coal on the roof, beer and food in the boat and find a good spot to get frozen in, reasonable distance from a water tap and a pub but not too close to either.

 

..............Dave

 

daily mirror online

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Naughty Cal Veteran II

Naughty Cal

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The weight of the snow will make it sit down lower so if you are concerned about outlets clear it occasionally.

 

We left our cruiser with some 6" on it the last time we had bad snow and it was fine. Anymore then that and we would worry about the hoods taking the extra weight.

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Rich Rising Star

Rich

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Winter before last we had 17" snow on the towpaths up at Llangollen so a similar amount on the roof. The only concern I had was high level ventilation so it cleared round the mushrooms. This can mean that the boat takes on a list because of unequal clearing so you have to balance it, or walk around on the slope.

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dmr Veteran II

dmr

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Very interesting, I had never thought about the weight of the snow.

A bit of Googling suggests snow can weight between 50 and 300kg per cubic metre.

 

http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Icy-Ecosystems/Looking-closer/Snow-and-ice-density

 

Water is 1000kg/m3 so using Archimedes and the denser snow (300kg) then very roughly the boat will sink by a third of the snow depth!!!!....

6 inches of snow will sink the boat by 2 inches!!!!!

I suspect that most snow is probably more 50 than 300 though.

 

............Dave

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colmac Proficient

colmac

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Funnily enough I have just been reading that even the most state of the art met forecasting methods can't accurately predict weather for more than5 days. Beyond this they use weather models from previous years and approaching systems which can veer off without warning. Don't know if the new multi-million pound computer the Met office have just had fitted will improve this.

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bottle Veteran II

bottle

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The new computer (not working yet, expected September 2015) will only reduce the size of the area that forecasts are for and do it more often.

 

The facility will work 13 times faster than the current system, enabling detailed, UK-wide forecast models with a resolution of 1.5km to be run every single hour, rather than every three.

 

From BBC site link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29789208

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Gordias Community Regular

Gordias

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Dry snow (typically after a fresh fall) is light - a couple of feet isn't likely to be a problem - but wet snow can get very heavy. The 50-300 range quoted above sounds right. It's unusual for new snow to be wet and heavy, but it's not impossible. If it happens to a degree that could affect a narrow boat it will be destroying roofs in the area so you'll see it on TV (this is not an exaggeration - if there was ever enough fresh wet snow to immediately affect narrow boats it will kill a lot of people).

 

I can confirm the earlier comments that snow is an excellent insulator, so unless there's reason to expect it to compress or melt/refreeze (see below), it would make sense to leave it alone.

 

If you want to clear it, a perspective from clearing snow from (a lot of) steps and paths more times than I can remember:

With more normal snow, if you're in your boat you could quickly clear the snow straight after it falls, or the next morning - probably only ten minutes work for a 70-footer. It would become much harder to remove if you let it compress (leave it a long time, through many snowfalls) or melt/refreeze (heat from inside the boat, or temperatures crossing +/- with plenty of snow). Fresh wet snow (remember it's not likely, but you would need to react if it happens) is easy enough to move, but hard work - maybe 20-30 minutes for one boat.

 

FWIW there are situations where a boat can be damaged by ice, but I don't know if this would happen on a frozen canal.

 

The risk occurs because ice floats - i.e. it has higher volume for the weight than water. As it freezes, it can wants to move upwards and outwards. The outwards part of that is what destroyed some of the old sailing ships that carried expeditions to the poles. Of course they were exposed to lateral compression from many square miles of frozen ocean - a canal or marina doesn't have enough area. OTOH a canal can freeze from top to bottom, which AFAIK doesn't happen even at the south pole.

 

Note that there's a lot of energy in thermal compression/expansion. If freezing water in a canal can get a "grip" in a narrow boat instead of harmlessly push it upwards, it could easily pop welds or deform the hull.

 

BTW -27 C is quite cold. A week of that is potentially (probably TBH) lethal for unprepared vulnerable old people in houses insulated and heated for -10. I hope the forecasters can do better than a 5 day lead time, because it would take a while to identify and anyone in that situation and move them somewhere warm.

Edited by Gordias
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dmr Veteran II

dmr

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December 2010 aprox 6 - 8 inches made no noticeable difference to the waterline.

 

3FcSevT.jpg

 

How do you know? You can hardly see the waterline!

In big freeze a few years ago we were seriously trapped in the ice. Seven and a half weeks with ice up to about 6 inches thick, and this was the K&A.

The ice held the boat tightly but the water level below fell an inch or so every night, maybe something to do with back-pumping?. Each night there would be a couple of blood curdling groans then the boat would drop down the inch or so.

 

............Dave

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Gordias Community Regular

Gordias

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Nice picture!

 

For anyone who hasn't thought about it, that's nice fluffy snow - the kind that might as well be left as insulation.

 

One of the things that compresses snow is walking on it - you get a 10:1 compression easily, and of course it's proportionally heavier.

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DaveP Proficient

DaveP

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I was on the southern Oxford in 2009/10/11 for the chilly winters. We were frozen in for quite some time (several weeks) and had snow up to 18" deep.

 

The snow on the roof didn't affect my draught to any significant degree and since there was nothing moving through the 6" of ice, that wasn't a problem either. However, it was a real annoyance getting to the coal bags under it.

 

One trick to keep the ice away from your boat - feed the local waterfowl population every day (preferably at least twice); their swimming will disturb the water to such an extent that the ice will not form. This does mean that you will not be able to walk across the canal as a shortcut to the pub though.

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cotswoldsman Veteran II

cotswoldsman

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How do you know? You can hardly see the waterline!

In big freeze a few years ago we were seriously trapped in the ice. Seven and a half weeks with ice up to about 6 inches thick, and this was the K&A.

The ice held the boat tightly but the water level below fell an inch or so every night, maybe something to do with back-pumping?. Each night there would be a couple of blood curdling groans then the boat would drop down the inch or so.

 

............Dave

If that is the same one as I got stuck in on the South Oxford itstarted in November and I ran out of water and was helped out by a member of this forum who delivered water to.me. I was eventually freed by Dusty on his coal boat

Coal Boat Dusty 2:

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