London shuts down

As expected we've woken to five inches of snow covering absolutely everything. The snow is still falling as I type, with more forecast throughout the day. You can see the image last night on the left as we went to bed, followed by the sight that greeted us this morning.


London is now in total chaos. All bus services have been cancelled. Several mainline train stations are closed including Paddington station. Garry's office has called its staff and asked them to work from home. All tubes lines to my office are currently suspended. The tube map above shows the extent of the chaos. This real-time map only highlights lines that are suspended or suffering severe delays. In short, only two tube lines are operating at normal level..

Elsewhere there's the usual news of jack-knifed lorries on the motorway and schools closed. Heathrow has shut both of its runways. London City Airport is closed. Gatwick is open but suffering severe delays as its runway was closed earlier. Passengers on cancelled flights everywhere are effectively trapped as most mainline trains are also cancelled.


The Met Office is warning of severe weather for another two days. Odds are high this will be London's heaviest snowfall since 1991. My brother in Austria must be laughing as he reads all of this. Kitzbuhel is covered insnow all winter and life goes on as normal. Get a few inches in London and the entire city grinds to a shuddering halt.