Off the original topic but with regard to some of the comments posted.
Edinburgh, desite being in Scotland, rarely suffers from significant falls of snow. This is due to a number of factors but the main one seems to be that a micro climate exists due to the warming effect of the River Forth. This keeps the ambient temperature a couple of degrees higher than the surrounding areas. It is not uncommon to sit in the tower at Edinburgh and see snow to the North over Dunfermline and snow to the South over the Pentlands, whilst if there is any precipitation at all at the airport then it is falling as rain.
Last year the airport closed once for runway sweeping. The year before, not at all. Significantly less than Other Airfields including those in The South East of England.
The forecast for last Friday showed what would normally be expected during the winter ie that the snow would dump on Aberdeen and on Newcastle but miss Edinburgh ( although we did receive a preliminary snow warning, stating that there might be slight showers of rain and snow with no accumulation expected.)
When the snow started to fall heavily, A very quick decision was made to close the runway. ( One of the factors that needs to be taken into account is the availability of Glasgow and Prestwick as diversionary airfields and they were expecting snow too.)
During the sweeping process, as quickly as black top was emerging it was being recovered and so the process took longer than was originally anticipated.
Eventually a decision was taken to re-open the airfield but wet snow continued to fall. After an hour, two seperate captains reported that the braking action was less than good and so in the interests of safety the airfield was shut again.
Having worked that day I know the pressures that Airfield operations were under and I have to say they did a very proffesional job and deserve credit for their actions. I understand that as a passenger it must have been very frustrating but I assure you that all involved were working their N**s off to ensure a safe operation.