Massive tailbacks in all major Irish cities. People abandoning cars. Bus services cancelled or curtailed. Flights diverted. Ferry sailings cancelled. Huge upsurge in people calling into work sick. Hospitals inundated with admissions.

Is this a movie about an Ebola-like plague sweeping Ireland? Is it a simulation for some future disaster that might strike the country?

No, it is none of these things. It’s simply the reality that occurs every winter when Ireland is ‘hit’ by a couple of centimetres of snow. Yes, when it comes to cold weather, we are definitely the champion wimps of the world.

Met Éireann has taken to issuing weather warnings of late. Now, you’d normally expect that, when a meteorological service issues a warning, some potentially catastrophic weather event is in the offing. Not in Ireland. A recent weather alert was issued that there was the ‘threat’ of three centimetres of snow across the country. Three bleedin’ centimetres! That would barely come above the soles of your shoes! Of course, panic hits the streets. The snow is the main item on the Six O’Clock News. Traffic grinds to a halt. Public transport services collapse. The various councils say that they haven’t enough salt to keep the roads clear. People take to their beds en masse as though struck by a deadly epidemic.

Foreigners used to cold climes watch us with bewilderment, scratching their heads and wondering if there’s been a military coup or something, such is the chaos that reigns in the streets. In many other countries, people regularly have to find their car with a stick before digging it out, and then driving to work along roads that have already been cleared before sunrise. Temperatures regularly fall below -30°C. Rivers and lakes become solid blocks of ice – and it happens every year. Should anything remotely like these conditions ever hit Ireland just once, half the population would be wiped out, all commerce would cease and the streets would be deserted.

So the next time we get a light dusting of snow in the middle of winter, please don’t react with shock/horror/panic.

In fact, just chill.