Snow chains for tires Information

The snow line is the point above which, or poleward of which, snow and ice cover the ground throughout the year.

The interplay of altitude and latitude affect the precise placement of the snow line at a particular location. At or near the equator, it is typically situated at approximately 4,500 meters (or about 15,000 feet) above sea level. As one moves towards the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, the parameter at first increases: in the Himalayas the permanent snow line can be as high as 5,700 metres (18,700 feet). Beyond the Tropics the snow line becomes progressively lower as the latitude increases, falling all the way to sea level itself near the poles.

In addition, the relative location of a mountain to the nearest coastline can be a factor in how high the snow line would be; a peak near a coast — especially the west coast — of a continent might have a lower snow line than one of the same height and at the same latitude situated in a landmass interior, because the average summer temperature of the surrounding lowlands would be warmer in the latter spot than in the former, thus making a higher altitude necessary to keep the snow from melting in the summer.

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Paddle tires are mainly used on off road vehicles, specifically designed for use in sand. They consist of a smooth tire core which has a series of large rubber cups (or paddles) attached to it. The volume inside of a paddle is much larger than the void of a knobby tire, so it is unlikely to clog up with sand. The paddle provides superior traction in the sand, in part, because the paddles dig into the sand and push off from the buried sand, not just the surface.

Paddle tires are available for motocross bikes, all-terrain vehicles, sandrails, and 4 wheel drives. Because the paddles are rigid and stick up several inches, they are not suitable for use on roads or hard terrain.

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Maloja Pass (Italian: Passo del Maloja, German: Malojapass) (el. 1815 m.) is a high mountain pass in the Swiss Alps in the canton of Graubünden, linking the Engadin with the Val Bregaglia and Chiavenna in Italy.

The road from Chiavenna to Silvaplana with distances and elevation:

• 0 km Chiavenna 333 m
• 10 km Castasegna (Italian-Swiss border) 696 m
• 13 km Promontogno 802 m
• 16 km Stampa 994 m
• 18 km Borgonovo 1029 m
• 19 km Vicosoprano 1065 m
• 27 km Casaccia 1458 m
• 32 km Maloja Pass 1815 m
• 33 km Maloja (village) 1809 m
• 40 km Sils/Segl 1798 m
• 44 km Silvaplana 1802 m

Maloja pass is open in winter. However, after a snowfall the road may be closed for a couple of hours or for an entire day. Even if open, the road might be covered with snow — winter tires or chains would help.

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John Snow or Jon Snow is the name of:

• John Snow (physician), the founder of epidemiology and a major contributor to the development of anaesthesia
• John W. Snow, United States Secretary of the Treasury from 2003-2006
• Jonathan L. Snow, an expert on Hamas and a Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington DC
• John Snow (cricketer), an English cricketer
• John J. Snow, Jr., a member of the North Carolina Senate
• Jon Snow, British newscaster
• John Snow, Inc, public health research/consulting firm
• Jon Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire), a character in George R. R. Martin’s novel series A Song of Ice and Fire

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Greek National Road 38 is a highway linking the cities of Agrinio, Karpenisi and Lamia. It is the only highway linking Agrinio and Larissa because GR-30 is narrow. The highway passes into the reservoir of the Acheloos river and into the Pindus ranges. It later passes through Karpenisi and into the Spercheios valley before ending in Lamia. It runs into the prefectures of Aitolia-Acarnania, Eurytania and Fthiotis.

The highway was mainly gravel from NE of Agrinio up to Eurytania and mainly wasn’t accessible during winter months. It was later paved in the 1990s.

The road is partially snow covered and is accessible only with tire chains throughout the winter months. It happened during heavy snow and blizzard weathers in most areas at the turn of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century but not as much as other mountainous roads.

History

In 2001, heavy rainfalls devastated and flooded part of the highway.

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Snow algae describes cold-tolerant algae and cyanobacteria that grow on snow and ice. Visible algal blooms may be called red or watermelon snow. Snow algae is studied to understand the glacial ecosystem.

Snow algae has been described in the Arctic and on Arctic sea ice, and from Greenland, the Antarctic, Alaska the westcoast and eastcoast of North America, the Himalayas, Japan, New Guinea, Europe, China, Patagonia in Chile and the South Orkney Islands.

More famously, red snow was mentioned in Jules Verne’s book “The Desert of Ice”,
which describes an expedition to the North Pole, decades before such were possible.
Verne notes that the red snow effect is caused by fungi, and was known in Switzerland and Baffin Bay.

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Snow is an experimental video codec developed by Michael Niedermayer for the FFmpeg package. It can compress video either lossily or losslessly. Snow implements wavelet-based compression, allowing for impressive image quality at very low bitrates. It is open source licensed under the LGPL.

Comparison

Snow is similar to Tarkin, Dirac, and numerous other wavelet-using codecs.

Technical details can be found in the snow.txt file included in the ffmpeg source package.

Programs Using Snow

The following open-source video editing programs can encode to Snow format:

• Avidemux
• LiVES
• MeGUI
• VirtualDubMod with ffdshow tryouts
  
• MEncoder

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The Snow Foundation is a non-profit ogranisation operating in Canberra. It was established to assist those in need in the Canberra community whose needs are not covered by government sources.

History

The Snow Foundation is a response to the long association the Snow family has had with the Canberra region, dating back to 1926 when E.R. Snow, the founders’ grandfather, came to Canberra to establish the Capital’s first general store.

The Foundation is the creation of brothers Terry and George Snow who set it up in 1990 with the aim of helping those individuals and organisations that freely gave their time to help the less fortunate live fulfilling lives.Starting with an initial contribution of $1 million, the Foundation has provided financial help to a diverse range of organisations throughout Canberra and the surrounding region.

In 1997 Terry added a further $500,000 to the Foundation, and in 2005 added a further $1 million to enable it to maintain and set up further activities. Since then, he has given substantive donations to the Foundation, meaning the capital value of the Foundation exceeded $3 million in 1997.

In the 15 years since it was established, The Snow Foundation has reached out to help more than 80 different organisations and individuals. The Foundation does not give ‘blanket’ donations but help with the funding of a specific program/treatment/equipment.

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Subnivean (or subniveal) refers to a zone that is in or under the snow layer.

Subnivean animals include small mammals such as mice, voles, shrews, and lemmings that must rely on winter snow cover for survival. These mammals move under the snow for protection from heat loss and predators. In winter regions that do not have permafrost, the subnivean zone maintains a temperature of close to 32F (0C) regardless of the temperature above the snow cover, once the snow cover has reached a depth of six inches. The sinuous tunnels left by these small mammals can be seen when the snow melts to the final inch or so.

Winter predators such as foxes and large owls can hear their prey through the snow and pounce from above. Snowmobiles and ATVs can collapse the subnivean space, as can skis, snow shoes and bicycles.

Larger animals also utilize subnivean space. In the Arctic, ringed seals have closed spaces under the snow and above openings in the ice. In addition to resting and sleeping there, the female seals give birth to their pups on the ice. Female polar bears also den in snow caves to give birth to their young. Both types of dens are protected from exterior temperatures.

Winter World by Bernd Heinrich (2003) is an excellent resource on the ingenuity of animal survival in the seasonal cold weather of a Maine winter.

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Tire load sensitivity describes the behaviour of tires under load. Conventional pneumatic tires do not behave as classical friction theory would suggest. Friction theory says that the maximum horizontal force developed should be proportional to the vertical load on the tire. In practice, the maximum horizontal force Fy that can be generated is proportional, roughly, to the vertical load Fz raised to the power of somewhere between 0.7 and 0.9, typically.

Production car tires typically develop this maximum lateral force at a slip angle of 6-10 degrees, although this angle increases as the vertical load on the tire increases. Milliken, W.F., Milliken, D.L., 1995, “Race Car Vehicle Dynamics”, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Warrendale, PA. page 27. Formula 1 car tires may reach a peak sideforce at 3 degrees Wright P., 2001, “Formula 1 Technology”, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Warrendale, PA.

Example

As an example, here is data extracted from Milliken and Milliken’s “Race Car Vehicle Dynamics”, figure 2.9:

The same sensitivity is typically seen in the longitudinal forces, and combined lateral and longitudinal slip.

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