Parts of south-east England had more than an inch of snow last night while London experienced its first October snowfall in more than 70 years as winter conditions arrived early.
Snow settled on the ground in parts of the capital last night as temperatures dipped below zero. A Met Office spokeswoman said it was London's first October snow since 1934
LATEST NEWSSnow causing further disruption
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Round-up of school closures
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NEWS FROM AROUND THE UK
Roads worry as temperatures fall
Snow and ice causing disruption
Drivers warned of icy conditions
Heavy snow closes 500 Welsh schools
Further disruption for commuters
List of school closures in Wales
Heavy snow hits schools and roads
The Meteorological Office had tracked the storm since last week and published its forecasts. As snow fell across southern Britain, about 6.4 million people, or 20 percent of the workforce, didn’t go to work yesterday. The country’s economy, in a recession, could lose as much as 1.2 billion pounds ($1.69 billion) in sales, the business federation estimated.
Following the Meteorological Office’s storm forecasts, local-government officials said they had prepared by assigning extra staff to dump grit on roads. They couldn’t keep pace with the snowfall.“The volume of snow falling in the middle of the night was very difficult for us,” David Brown, the head of Transport for London’s bus operations, said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview yesterday.
London Mayor Boris Johnson described the weather as some of the “most challenging” conditions London has faced in two decades. He said the city and its 32 local boroughs didn’t have enough snow plows to clear the roads. Johnson rode to work yesterday on his bicycle.
Travel disruption and school closures have continued after heavy snow. The storms which crippled the south east of England on Monday have now spread through Wales, the north and south-west of England
The cold snap with its widespread frost and crisp air is being caused by air from the Arctic replacing the normal south-westerly Atlantic breezes. "What we saw was the back edge of a weather system being blown down from the Arctic catching London," said Byron Chalcraft, a Met Office forecaster
HELP !HELP
From: Matt Norton <http://uk.mc274.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=mattnorton123@yahoo.co.uk>Date: 2009/2/2Subject: Books for Education - Please HelpTo:
Dear Friends
I appologise! You have been selected to participate in Matthews programme to provide books for education in rural communities around the world.
You will all know my stories from MHPF and the work that i have been doing in Africa, and this is an addition to that work to help support educational programmes with adequate reading materials. You have seen pictures of the children and programmes that we work with and have heard me discussing on numerous occassions. For the people in rural communities of the world, education is vital and provides hope and opportunities for people that dont have it.
In working with our schools and meeting many others i have encountered a real crux in providing quality education: books. It is almost impossible to teach quality education without books and a massive difficulty when trying to teach a class where children share 1 book between 4. For many schools that we have our libraries need more stock. For friends and neighbouring schools, their book shelves and libraries stand empty - a sad reminder of what little the schools have.
Think about how much books meant to you as a child and how much books mean to you now or how much books mean to your own children. Now think about taking that away. Without books, all of our lives paths would definitely be different. Therein lays the basis of my mail. I need your help! I want to support each of the MHPF schools with books and a number of other schools and communities who desperately need our help. I want to provide enough books to create libraries that will provide a basis for the children (and adults) to develop their education and a love of reading.
If you would like to help there are a couple of things that you can do:
1) Send any books that you have which would be suitable for young children.
2) Forward this mail to friends/families/ colleagues who may have books that their children may have outgrown. Everyone has old copies of classics that would be treasured by other children.
3) Put some money in an envelope and send it along to support the library programme.
Please remember the energy and hunger for knowledge of youth and do something about it to help these children. Get your friends involved too ! Here is an opportunity to do something small that will make a big impact on others in the world. People who due to poverty and to the place that they were born are being deprived of education.
The worst option is for us all to do nothing.
Thank you to all and kind regards as always
Matthew
Dear Friends
I appologise! You have been selected to participate in Matthews programme to provide books for education in rural communities around the world.
You will all know my stories from MHPF and the work that i have been doing in Africa, and this is an addition to that work to help support educational programmes with adequate reading materials. You have seen pictures of the children and programmes that we work with and have heard me discussing on numerous occassions. For the people in rural communities of the world, education is vital and provides hope and opportunities for people that dont have it.
In working with our schools and meeting many others i have encountered a real crux in providing quality education: books. It is almost impossible to teach quality education without books and a massive difficulty when trying to teach a class where children share 1 book between 4. For many schools that we have our libraries need more stock. For friends and neighbouring schools, their book shelves and libraries stand empty - a sad reminder of what little the schools have.
Think about how much books meant to you as a child and how much books mean to you now or how much books mean to your own children. Now think about taking that away. Without books, all of our lives paths would definitely be different. Therein lays the basis of my mail. I need your help! I want to support each of the MHPF schools with books and a number of other schools and communities who desperately need our help. I want to provide enough books to create libraries that will provide a basis for the children (and adults) to develop their education and a love of reading.
If you would like to help there are a couple of things that you can do:
1) Send any books that you have which would be suitable for young children.
2) Forward this mail to friends/families/ colleagues who may have books that their children may have outgrown. Everyone has old copies of classics that would be treasured by other children.
3) Put some money in an envelope and send it along to support the library programme.
Please remember the energy and hunger for knowledge of youth and do something about it to help these children. Get your friends involved too ! Here is an opportunity to do something small that will make a big impact on others in the world. People who due to poverty and to the place that they were born are being deprived of education.
The worst option is for us all to do nothing.
Thank you to all and kind regards as always
Matthew
