I agree that the fiascos at our airports and on our rail network are a national embarassment. However, the excuse "the wrong kind of snow" does have some validity. We hear much about Calgary, Helsinki and Zurich and their snow clearing efficiencies, but their temperatures are very much lower than we get. I trained near Calgary (Red Deer). When it snowed it was either blown off the runway or just rolled and we flew off it. At very low temperatures rolled snow has most of the properties of concrete and cold snow is powdery and easily blown. The trouble is our snow is aways fairly close to zero, it takes very little pressure to turn it to liquid and subsequently refreeze and stick to the surface as ice, and at UK temperatures the snow is normally wet and blowing is not an option. I don't know the answer but I thought it was only fair to point out that, just because our temperatures don't go that low, we must be incompetent is just not true; it is actually the reverse.