Why Poland is "surprised" by winter and snow every year?

Why Poland is "surprised" by winter and snow every year?

some folks might get a surprise in the morning here.

it's down to -18 now and one source has it dropping to -23

in Wroclaw? wow...

ha! just -4 in Lublin. Where did I put my beach flip-flops?...

A bit about tyres...

On a nice sunny day on good asphalt the best tyre to have is one with a medium compound and very little in the way of tread...Many people think that a lack of tread means a lack of grip , but not so , a bald tyre works very well on a smooth dry road , not so well in the wet of course...Look at the old formula one cars , they had slick tyres , because thats what gives the most grip...

Of course they pull in and change tyres if it starts to rain , as a slick tyre is not good in the wet , a tyre with a tread is needed , the tread is what stops the water from building up under the tyre and causing aquaplanning this is the scarey moment when your tyres leave the road surface and ski along on the water , braking and steering does not work...!

For a road tyre you need a tyre that works well in the dry and the wet , and also one that is not going to wear out too quickly , when it comes to tyre compounds the softer the tyre the more grip it gives , but of course the softer tyre is going to wear out much quicker...

When it comes to snow you need not only a good tyre tread , but one where the tread is more widely spaced and agressive , this is not only to get a grip on the snow , but to stop the treads filling up with snow , if this happens they are no better than a slick...

I don,t change tyres on my car because its a 4 x 4 Jeep and has tyres that are made to cope with mud , any tyre that can grip in mud will be good in snow , the more agressive the tread the better the grip , but the down side is that such tyres are quite noisy when you are on clear tarmac....

The worst tyres to have on snow are the low profile tyres fitted to high performance cars , these are all but useless on snow , and its best to leave the car at home if the snow is coming down hard...for this type of car winter tyres are essential...

once the snow turns to ice it does not matter what tyre you have on...it won,t grip unless you have metal studs in it...

No, most people buy in the warmer season and it would come with summer tyres and then you switch in the winter, as soon as we have one week below 7, normally mid november.


From what I have just been reading, there seems to be two companys Nokian ( Finnish) Yokohomo ( Japanese) that produce tyres called "snow and ice" these tyres do not have metal studs, but they are as good.

This is an interesting article on modern snow tire advancements...

The Finns should know a thing or two about snow , and the Yoko Jap tyres are pretty good...i have some doubts that anyone can make a tyre that will grip on the smooth polished ice once the snow gets packed down...

Maybe so, I have witnessed the A4 like that one winter driving back from Zakopane on January 1. It was a complete nightmare. 11.5 hours to get back to Warsaw.


In the article they do mention, more winter tyres are sold in Canada than the USA. Quite interesting take into consideration, the difference in the size of population

Not only PL, but also NL, B, A, CH, F (in the mountains), I (Aosta Valley) and D. In D it will become compulsory to use winter tires, even when there is no snow. At the moment it is only compulsory when the weather situation asks for it. When you get caught driving without winter tires, it'll cost you 40 euro, when you endanger the other traffic, it'll cost you 80.

Don't forget that the rubber compound of a winter tire is different as well; it has a softer rubber compound than the summer tires.


They are also more prone to aquaplanning.

If you want a good experiance of this , try hitting standing water on a race track in a Porsche doing 160 mph with fat racing tyres on...engine at the back , no weight on the front..!

You should have seen the mess it made when it hit the barriers...my boss was not pleased..!

Update: according to a Dutch commercial television station, German press agency DPA reports that winter tires will be compulsory in Germany from tomorrow (05/12/2010). Anyone caught without winter tires will be fined 40 euro. If an accident happens, you will be held criminally liable for damages.

So for all those of you, who drive from the UK, IRL, NL, B or F to PL (or v.v.) for the festive season and you don't have winter tires yet, now is the time to start looking for a set. I'm sure the German police will be checking on the known east-west-highways.

Thanks for that...its worth knowing , i bet they catch out a few...

Actually is not :-) According to calendar winter starts on 22 December. So ladies and gentelman that thing outside is not a proper winter yet ;) :) :)

That is why it is surprising, funny thing is that on 22 December it can all melt..... or not :)
Actually I kind of envy my older family who are telling sometimes that there was a winter when they were walking in ice tunels as big as old man on the streets. Wouldn't it be cool to have at least one of that kind? ;)

this from the BBC website:

Temperatures in Poland have fallen to as low as -33C (-27F) in the past few days.

Another 12 people froze to death across Poland on Thursday night, according to police, bringing the total killed there during this cold snap to 30.

Police say many of the victims were homeless people.

Around 150,000 people in the Polish city of Czestochowa were reported to be without heating on Friday.

When oh when will Poland start to care about the homeless? This situation has been going on for years. For such a Christian country it lets itself down badly on this count.

I think the problem is that to get into some kind of shelter you have to be sober , and no alcohol is allowed , so these people choose to be out on the street where they can drink...

Alcohol lowers your body tempreture , you get drunk , fall asleep , the body tempreture drops even further when you sleep . and if you are sleeping in a bus shelter and the tempreture drops way below zero...you die...

I am sure there are places these people can go , but sadly they choose alcohol over a warm bed...

wildrover - how are you going to keep warm this winter? Seriousy. Do you have sufficient supply of coal ar are you going to chop the fruit trees? And no, the cats is not a good answer.

As it happens i have just run out of wood....i shall be looking for another supplier very soon...The last lot i got , apart from being very expensive consisted of lots of logs that were huge , far too big to go in my Polish log heater , so i was forced to try and chop it up with my not so good axe....I did tell the guy it was for a Polish heater , but it seems he was not listening....

At the moment the house is 20 degrees inside , so not so bad , as long as i can get some more wood at a reasonable price....

Looks like the storm has been weathered for now, - 16 tonight and then normal temps for a while.


Id say reasonable would be about 180 PLN / m3 as long as its dry enough to burn. What kind of price would you expect up there?

why not use coal?

Alcoholism is a disease, an addiction, i don't think it is a matter of choice, need rather. It is tragic.

I asked the guy who is the forest chief how much it would cost for enough wood to see me through november to january...he said it would be about 3000 zloty...a bit over the top i think....?

in the end i got enough to last me about a month and paid 400 zloty , it was dry and burnt well , but a lot of it i had to chop up before i could get it in my heater , despite telling him i needed it for the typical Polish heater...

I have no idea what m/3 means...i can only go by what a trailor load looks like...

i did find one place that was quite cheap , but they wanted 200 zloty to deliver it 10 kms to my farm....

i am tempted to just buy a chainsaw and chop up a building thats falling down anyway....

How much wood is this exactly? Don't they sell firewood over there by the cord like they do over here? Cord is our firewood unit of measure here.

A cord of mixed hardwoods, seasoned (aged/ dry), split and delivered (dumped in a pile, not stacked) is going for about $150 now here. This is actually down a bit in price from what it was last year. I don't know why.

Wood is sold by cubic meter. Like gas, water, and just about everything else :)

It varies...a trailor load is the normal sized trailor dragged behind the old Ursus tractor , and how much wood is on it depends on how stupid an English person they think you are....!

A cord of wood is 20 m3 (square meters), over here and freshly chopped that will set you back about 2800 PLN you still have to dry it out though. When i bought from the forestry commission last winter it was in 1.5 meter logs so i still had to chainsaw into four logs and axe chop/split them.

Silver Birch is one of the quickest drying woods, Ash is the best that can go straight to the fire.

Damn metrics. :p


Lol. Just like this from that site!:



That's expensive. And you still have to do all that work...

The whole M3 of wood is a rip of anyway, within that measurement there will be air lots of air. A m3 of water is exactly that just water.

dam...its hard enough chopping trees down...don,t fancy digging a mine shaft in the garden....or can you buy it in bags....?

Good point. There are sneaky ways to stack firewood that lets a supplier rip you off even further. This is good for drying the wood but bad for your wallet.

This is why I always thought they should sell firewood by weight -like they do stone, etc., rather than by volume. Sure, weight would vary slightly depending on type of wood and how dry it is, but it would still be a more accurate measurement than stacked with all the empty air spaces.