winter tires story

[Brett Dikeman]

At 9:34 PM +0200 10/17/01, Phil Payne wrote:
>Here in North Germany we have a very similar effect with 'Eisregen'.
>It freezes - minus 6 to 10 Celcius - for a few days.  Dry.
>Then an inversion layer comes over from the sea - cold upper atmosphere,
>warm middle layer, clod ground layer.
>Then it snows.  The snow melts as it passes through the warm layer and then
>refreezes when it hits the ground.
>The effects are weird.  It fills all the cracks around a car, encasing it in
>polished ice.  You can get the key in the door, but the door is frozen shut.

Same thing happens here in NE occasionally.

During one memorable winter, shortly after I started driving, 
everything glazed over right before I had to leave to get to school. 
Well, the town highway department actually manages to do their job, 
and sands+salts immediately, and things are fine.  That is, until we 
got to school.

Most of the lots and driveways were still completely iced, which made 
for some spectacular skids etc as people entered the student parking 
lot, lost control, etc.

My best friend followed me in, and I overshot my intended parking 
space by about 10 spaces because the car slid.  We parked next to 
each other, and he and his sister got out of the car and both went 
for their bags on the back seat.  While he was between the two cars, 
she slammed the rear passenger door...and his car slid towards him.

Two guys exacted some revenge on our twerpy, goody-two-shoes class 
President...the walked up to his little Honda Del Sol, and pushed 
gently on opposite corners.  It rotated 90 degrees like it was on an 
air table.  Immediately others parked in spaces to either side.

About an hour later, the sun came out, and thin ice layer melted 
within minutes, before he could push the car back.  Guess who wasn't 
able to go for lunch or leave early that day :-)

The student body always had a talent at exacting minor, harmless 
revenge for people whose mummy+daddy paid for a car they didn't 
deserve.  One kid got a brand new, loaded Ford Exporer(great car for 
a teenager, mmm hmm) and someone discovered that lifting the door 
handles would set off the alarm.

Guess what happened every day at lunchtime?

Whoooop whooop bzzt bzzt bzzt WEEEEE oooooo WEEEEE oooooo rrrrrRRRRUP 
rrrrrrRRRUP!

And it wasn't the kind that turned off after a while, so a staff 
member would have to find him(usually in the middle of his lunch) and 
get him to reset the alarm.

B
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