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I got my wish and got caught in some heavy snow after the Killie v Falkirk U20 game on the way to my pal's bit. But it was alright because we played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on the old PS2 when I got there and had a cracking time.

I hope there's hunners of snow tomorrow, Killie hasn't had much snow in the past 2/3 years. Unfortunately due to our location in the Irvine Valley we rarely get it when just a couple of miles north in Fenwick there's hunners of the stuff. Garry O'Connor would probably in dreamland at the sight of it actually.

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Poor definition seeing as an estuary / firth will inevitably lie between the two.

Tidal? Check (>2m swing at Greenock today)

Salty? Check

Hence coastal? Check

Firth of Clyde? ...

attachicon.gifGreenock.JPG

Check. But hey, what would the Ordnance Survey know about geography? (I'm sure they'd all love a VT lecture to re-educate them)

Don't think I need to clog up this thread with basic school level stuff any further.

firth

(fûrth)

A long narrow inlet of the sea. Firths are usually the lower part of an estuary, but are sometimes fjords.

estuary

(ˈɛstjʊərɪ)

n, pl -aries
1. (Physical Geography) the widening channel of a river where it nears the sea, with a mixing of fresh water and salt (tidal) water
2. (Physical Geography) an inlet of the sea
Edited by forfarton
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Another covering in Dundee. The previously-clear roads are covered again and the sky looks snowy.

It's totally pish, had a bit of bother this morning, ABS came on going up Alexander street and drove along McDonald street at a mile an hour to get parked, that's when it wasn't snowing... Been pretty heavy since then so getting out tonight will be fun. f**k aff snow! :(

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Guest The Phoenix

Its pretty bad tbh - had i been there and didn't know who she was i also would have turned a blind eye

And a David Blunkett if you'd known?

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firth

(fûrth)

A long narrow inlet of the sea. Firths are usually the lower part of an estuary, but are sometimes fjords.

estuary

(ˈɛstjʊərɪ)

n, pl -aries

1. (Physical Geography) the widening channel of a river where it nears the sea, with a mixing of fresh water and salt (tidal) water
2. (Physical Geography) an inlet of the sea

Bits that contradict your your train of thought highlighted. If you're using that to say "if it's on a firth then it's part of an estuary, hence it's part of the river" then to be consistent you'd need to say that Ayr, unquestionably on the Firth of Clyde, is also on the River Clyde... which would obviously be ridiculous.

Perhaps a well described letter from Donald McLusky, editor of the journal 'Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science' would help:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/the-difference-between-river-estuary-and-firth-1.53392

An estuary is defined as "a semi-enclosed coastal body of water, which has a free connection with the open sea, and within which sea water is measurably diluted with fresh water derived from land drainage" and originates from the Latin word "aestuarium". The word firth (or frith) originates from the Old Norse Word "fjoeror", which also gave rise to the modern Norwegian word of fjord. Both firth and fjord are now generally defined as an arm of the sea.

The difference is crucial - a firth (or fjord) is made up of undiluted sea water, but an estuary has a gradation of salt water dilution from fully salt water at its mouth to fresh water at its head, and experiences tidal fluctuations. For the sake of completion, a river is a freshwater body of water which flows in one direction (towards the head of the estuary) and does not experience tidal fluctuations.

Thus... for the Clyde, the areas are:

River Clyde - upstream of the tidal weir in Glasgow; Clyde Estuary - Glasgow to Greenock; Firth of Clyde - seawards from Greenock.

I hope that this helps.

Donald McLusky

Prior to this recurrence, two separate arguments have been ongoing on P&B for ages, although some don't see this, hence mixing up the arguments they put forward. These are:

  1. Greenock is not coastal.
  2. Greenock lies on what is culturally known as the River Clyde, not the Firth of Clyde

Regarding No.1, As the letter points out, Greenock is not on a 'river' (in the defined geographical term sense) but an estuary, which is unquestionably a coastal feature. Therefore still arguing in favour of the first 'argument' above with the genuine facts provided is just idiotic. Whether or not Greenockians call it 'the river' or 'River Clyde' is irrelevant. If you said that "Dundee isn't on the coast because it's on the Firth of Tay, hence part of the River Tay" then you'd rightfully be laughed at.

Of course, the line "seawards of Greenock" in the letter is open to interpretation seeing as the place is ~4 miles long. If you plan to pick holes in that then it's a waste of time as regardless of whether the area offshore the town centre is formally part of a firth or estuary, it's still coastal either way.

Argument No.2 is, granted, a bit more tricky as terms such as the 'Firth of Clyde' are long standing cultural ones which weren't originally defined by any formal geographical terminology. Of course, the Firth of Clyde must stop somewhere. The official OS have gone with that point being around Port Glasgow, not calling / labelling it the (estuary of the) River Clyde until further upstream where it's clearly far more restricted and will have notable freshwater influence (more so at low tide). Offshore Greenock on the other hand is far more open with a huge volume in comparison to what the freshwater coming in has to offer . Personally, that seems a perfectly logical place to draw the line to me and far better criteria than taking the word of one town (where locals evidently have a chip on their shoulder about being west coasters) over everyone else.

post-13234-0-66453600-1421245080_thumb.p

I can't see anything else I can add to make this any clearer and have made it (admittedly overly) comprehensive to sign off on a tiresome fiasco of an argument. If Greenockians want to continue arguing against the word of both the academics and the national mapping body on both arguments respectively then that's their own petty issue. If they manage to change their minds, then and only then will I take further notice.

No snow to report up here all week btw, nor much rain.

Edited by Hedgecutter
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