Snow excuse for failing to deal with winter weather

If there's one thing that always captures the nation's interest during the post-Christmas lull, it's the arrival of snow. For many people the first sign of white flakes around their ears is great news.

Kids get to go sledging and make snowmen, TV camera crews get to shoot heart-warming footage of them doing it, and the more elderly (or at least those who haven't already used up their Winter Fuel Allowance) get to compare the winter in question with those from decades ago - which naturally were colder and longer than the newfangled modern ones.

But in the main, the arrival of snow in the UK usually precipitates a particularly British kind of mild chaos. Office workers have to sit at their desks in mittens and scarves because the boiler is broken. Children get the day off school because of the half inch of snow around their houses. Previously busy roads become impassable.

As the cold snap swept in across the UK towards Notts this week, phrases like "travel chaos" and "fleets of gritters on standby" were already being bandied about. Luckily the cold snap is expected to be over by the weekend or you would be worried about the whole country grinding to an icy halt.

For all the panic over our transport infrastructure, it's not like our snowy spells are even that arduous. Other countries seem to manage - during a year I spent studying at the University of Wisconsin in the USA the authorities dealt with inches of snow and temperatures dipping past -30C with consummate ease.

The omens for Notts aren't too promising. In 2005 a 5cm flurry of snow across parts of the county prompted police to warn motorists against travelling, as drivers slid around on ungritted roads or were forced to wait in traffic jams.

If the snow does come this week, the city and county councils will doubtless spring into action with gritters and other measures to keep our roads open.

But I still can't help but wonder why, in what is supposed to be one of the most advanced countries in the world, we are always taken by surprise by a spell of cold weather which we know will always come at least once a year.

What are your experiences of snowy weather in Notts? Do our authorities cope well when the weather turns bad?