We've been having rather unseasonably cold weather around these here parts. Unfortunately, since we infrequently get snow, Seattle tends to completely shut down as we don't have the equipment to clear the snow, de-ice, sand, plow and do whatever one does to remove it. As a result, some main streets get cleared, but all the side streets and residential streets are still slippery compact snow and ice. It's been kind of like this off and on since last weekend. Last night we were supposed to have a storm of snow and heavy winds with lots of power outages expected. This cold blast is supposed to continue through next weekend with perhaps some breaks of upper 30s, but for the most part, this area will continue to be completely hogtied by the weather.
Public transportation is a complete joke in this kind of weather. I think Metro (bus) cancelled half of their routes due to extreme driving conditions and had to pull all the articulated buses out of service because they jack-knife like crazy in this weather. For those people who ventured out to work and got stuck, they had little chance of taking the bus to get back home if they lived in areas with a closed service area.
Generally, we get snow in the metro area once every few years. The last time I remember it being this bad was back in 1990 when it took me six hours to walk home. In a skirt. That was real fun I tell you. The buses I tried taking only got you so far and then you had to hike it up the hill and try to see if I could catch another one. I don't think things have improved much. But, I tell you, when it snows around here, I don't go anywhere if I can help it. I really don't want to relive that experience.
Do you live in an area that is having more extreme weather where your city/county is unprepared to handle it?
Anyway, if you don't hear from me for a few days or I go completely off the radar, it's because I've lost power. No power, no Internets.
30 Crunchy Thoughts:
Stay warm- and best of luck until the city recovers!
I remember in 1996 or so when I visited my boyfriend (now husband) in Seattle during a blizzard that shut down SeaTac (my flight was one of the last in.) There were no taxis available, and the city had to arrange for shuttles to transport the angry masses to downtown.
To make matters worse, my boyfriend had planned to go grocery shopping after I arrived, but couldn't due to the weather, and we couldn't even get takeout delivered! Mem-o-ries... To think we want to move back from California!
Hey Crunchy Chicken! I'm with you here in the Snowstorm Of Doom in Seattle. It's so gorgeous looking outside now, but lurking beneath those beautiful 5" of pristine untrodden snow are those 2" of ice that were tripping people up all day today. So no happy tromping through the snow. :( Wish people here shoveled their sidewalks, I miss that Midwestern "gotta get out there! Gotta shovel!" attitude. :) But I love that crisp crackling silence on a freezing snowy night - might have to brave the ice anyway just to get that experience again.
One good thing about being unemployed right now, I guess ... I didn't have to be anywhere during all this, I could sit back and relax and enjoy the beauty!
I was suppose to be driving to Las Vegas from San Diego on Thursday but I didn't (for reason I won't go into because I will go on forever) which turned out to be good since I probably would have been stuck on the road because they got snow too, and I would have been completely unprepared once there. It is unseasonably cold here too but nothing extreme, just cold and rainy, but being born and raised here it mine as well be snowing.
I'll cheer you up. This morning it's 12° below Zero F here; with 25-30 mph winds. Which means the windchill is between -40° and -50°F. yeeha.
Supposedly we're used to it; but in fact we haven't had real winters for the last 15 years, so folks are not quite up to speed. My biggest problem- we need xc skis- and all our old ones are dead. For 10 years, we had like 2 days a winter where it was POSSIBLE to ski; now we've got tons of snow; and need them to get around the farm- and we don't have them. We do have snowshoes; but the're 10 times the work of good skis.
Heat and power- no problem for us; off grid.
Basic strategy is simple- stay home. Folks are used to that answer here, and it's kind of universally accepted. "Can't get out of the driveway; we'll have to reschedule." Fine.
This has been our first big snowstorm of the year, but I'm in the Boston area. People are remembering how to drive in the snow, but they basically know how to deal. Some busses were re-routed to "snow routes", but almost nothing was actually cancelled.
I live in an area that's historically cold and wintery (upstate NY) but there hasn't been *real* winter in a while. We've only lived here 5 years, but of those 6 winters, only one (the first, of course) was bad enough that it seemed worse than the southern ohio/central illinois winters I was used to. It seems, though, that winter is back. Which is good, because we live in a house with a wood foundation and the climate here has always been marginal for the house - and downright bad for it the past few years (most wood foundations are in places with permafrost, or at least frozen ground 6 months of the year). People who have lived here 30+ years remember ice skating on our (large and deep) lake. Now, there's No Way you could do that, except at the very edges or on the inlet. I swim across (1.25 miles) each summer as part of a fundraiser, and it always alarms me how warm a 650+ foot deep lake this far north is (almost 80 usually).
Many people I know don't get snow tires - people who have lived here for 5-10 years - it's never even occurred to them. (we have them).
The return of winter weather has been coupled with the economic downturn to mean very poor road conditions since they aren't plowing/salting as much. I think a lot of people will be caught unprepared this winter.
I celebrated by buying a pair of Arctic Sport knee-high Muck Boots. Looks like i'll finally need 'em.
As Greenpa said, here in Minnesota we're having more snow than we've been used to in a long time. It's like my childhood again! Except, now my kids are 9 and 11 and finally get to play in real snow.
Unfortunately, even in our small city in Central MN you are expected to get to work, do your errands, etc. during this weather. Minnesota does have the equipment to clear this snow in relatively little time, but I wish we could just stay in. (Since I don't work outside the home, the kids and I can, but my DH has to teach school--haven't had one snow day yet). I think it's unrealistic to expect that our counties and cities are going to continue to be able to afford to keep clearing roads forever, as the sand/salt mix already costs double or triple what it did in last year, and of course our budgets are hurting.
I wish we could learn to take a break in our society, sit back and enjoy the snow more. Perhaps eventually we will be forced to.
Today's the Winter Solstice. A good day to take the Sun's example and be still for a little while. It's -40C here (the point at which the C and F scales converge) today, so I'll be taking Greenpa's advice and staying indoors as much as I can, having some tea and enjoying my weekend indoor chores.
We're in Kansas City where it was 5 below overnight and shouldn't get much higher than 6 today. In the last week we've had 5 inches of snow and an ice storm.
I was at the gym earlier this week (during the ice storm) and we got to talking about it. "we just throw on a hoodie and head out".
It must suck to be stuck where no one is equipped for the weather.
I'm pulling on my boots, jumping in my 4 wheel drive and going to my sister's to make cookies. Something to add to my thankful for list...our plowed streets.
Let's see - giant ice storm last week, knocked almost 200,000 people's power out in our region. Ice melted. Blizzard Friday, 18 inches of snow, running into this morning. Daytime high of 0 F, with windchills well below, oh and 7 more inches of snow expected today.
Yup, winter. We live out where there isn't much plowing - we're on the county line, so two counties both deny our road is their responsibility ;-) - my neighbors who live halfway up the extremely steep hill that begins our road (we live on the other side, at the bottom, right before the next steep hill) routinely have motorists who can't make it up over the hill come knocking on their door because they've driven into a ditch.
I'm hoping things stop so we can attend our synagogue Chanukah dinner tonight, but we're set to stay in. Like Greenpa, I need now cross country skis. But hey, I'm not complaining - we're happy here, we do fine without power, and then it is supposed to be sunny for two whole days before the next ice storm on Wednesday
;-).
I remember being romantically involved with a guy from VA, and how all of DC shuts down when there are a couple of inches of snow. I used to say that they were as unprepared for winter (even though it happened every year) as most of us in the northeast were for extremely hot summer temps (which also happen every year). A friend of ours from Seattle observed with mock pride that his city was completely unprepared for either one ;-).
Sharon
I'm on the border of MA and NH. We're certainly used to getting snow, but not getting hit this hard so many times in a row. We had the ice storm last weekend, snow Wed, Fri-Sat, a brief respite overnight and it's coming down hard again now. My solution is simple: stay home. We had a half day of school on Friday and since then I only turned the car on to get a CD out of it.
Well, we didn't get much wind down here by the sound, but we did get a good chunk of snow. My BIL's flight from NY was cancelled, but rescheduled for this evening.
If his flight isn't cancelled again I'm not sure exactly how he's getting up here since we don't have snow tires and I can't find our chains (haven't used them in 7 years).
Greenpa - I have two pairs of XC skis I wish I could huck over to you - they haven't gotten any use in about 8 years and are in the basement just crying out for use.
If I can find my XC boots maybe I'll take 'em for a spin down the street today. That ought to illicit some laughter from the kids. The last time I used them was on a downhill route and I'm pretty sure I broke my tailbone when I skidded out on the ice. Probably why they don't get much use anymore :)
I live in Southern California. While it only snowed on the mountains above my home, it did snow a ton in the desert. Everything shut down out there. There is hardly a person who knows how to run a snow plow and nobody knows how to drive in the snow so they just shut the whole dang towns down. People were stranded away from their children because they couldn't get home from work in LA. Its funny how a measily 5 inches can paralyze once city and barely effect another.
Houston's pretty much the same when we occasionally freeze, or get snow. They interviewed the lady in charge of roads during our recent snowfall; she said since we're usually pretty warm, we don't budget enough money to tend to all the roads, only a few main roads.
Set Twitter up with your cellphone to receive text messages. Then if you lose power, you can still "blog" through Twitter even if you lose power. Hopefully you have a car charger for your phone, and maybe a hand-crank charger too.
There's some kind of WordPress/Twitter plugin too, I looked in my FTP account -- it's called Twitter-Tools, or something like that. I don't remember how to config it to pick up your tweets on your blog, but I did it before Ike, so it's possible, even if I can't remember how I did it 8^)
Stay warm!
OOPS! Sorry, just woke up. I'm commenting on a Blogger comment form, about setting up with a WordPress plugin, duh! Well, you could blog the link to your Twitter acct too 8^)
We've had snow and a major icestorm in the last week. Now it's -26 F windchill here in central Illinois. We did have school canceled Friday, because they didn't want kids walking to school with power lines down, but otherwise everyone just keeps going about their business. I would actually have prefered a big snow to the ice we got. It's less destructive.
My dear dog is loving more than a foot of snow to bounce around in (she looks like a jack rabbit bounding across the yard), here in Skagit County. I've had to work the past few days, and I must say, I'm surprised at how many folks just *had* to get out and get their coffee in between storms. In less than 2 hours this morning, there were three different vehicles that got stuck in the snow in the parking lot or drive-thru that we (at one point, four people were pushing one car) helped get out. One guy promptly got his car re-stuck in a different batch of snow.
I am quite fond of the snow, it's pretty, it makes everything quiet, and there is a wide variety of entertainment options - from sledding and snow angels to watching a nearby hill as folks attempt to actually go over it... I wonder if it's just the cycling of things, why we're seeing such a "severe" storm (Yeah, yeah, this isn't much, compared to other places), or if it is due to climate change, or something else we haven't even figured out yet.
Stay warm, all!
--Erika
i ventured out yesterday morning to get some yarn to make a christmas present, and that was about it for me. portland can't really plow more than the main arterials. (most) buses and light rail are still running, though not on schedule. i found it easier and warmer to hoof it 20 blocks rather than wait at the bus stop and let my toes freeze.
Eight+ inches of snow here, northeast of Seattle, and it's still snowing. It got down to 1 degree F two nights ago, and thankfully we didn't have all the wind that was forecast last night. The lights flickered a bit, but that's all.
I've been following Sharon's advice about stocking up the pantry, and dh has been able to work from home. Since there's no place to go....
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....
Sorry, just had to do it. :-)
People just keep going on about their business here (south-central Montana), even though the roads are kinda ugly. As in, packed icy snow with more snow that fell on top. Main streets have the driving lanes somewhat clear, side streets not so much. Residential areas are packed snow. They gravel intersections and school crossings, and they plow the emergency snow routes, and possibly some of the main streets (though it can be hard to tell sometimes). If the temperatures are high enough, they use that environmentally-friendly snow melter stuff.
I only remember school being canceled for winter weather once in all the years I've lived here, and that was back in 1988/89 and only because they were having problems with the heating system at the school.
The one concession to the weather that is made, is when the temperature hits 0F, the kids don't have outdoor recess, and if they are waiting for a bus, they get to wait indoors.
People just bundle up, and the main thing I've seen in this frigid weather, is more parents driving their children instead of having them walk in windchill temps of minus 20F.
I'm in SE Michigan where we're supposed to used to this stuff, but this winter season has been more intense than any I remember for a long time. We've had snow on the ground and high temps below freezing almost continually since before Thanksgiving. I can't remember the last time that happened. In fact, the last couple of years it was downright pleasant well into November - dreamy.
Rude awakening this year! This weekend we got about 15 inches of snow at our house. Crazy.
I live in Maine, and we are currently having one doozy of a storm ... but snow and cold and ice and "winter" weather are normal. We went to the grocery store this afternoon, and on the way home, we were driving in "white out" conditions - typical, Maine winter weather ;). I tell ya, though, last week, we had a horrible ice storm that knocked our power out for three days, and not having power wasn't much of an issue (we were prepared), but what was an issue is all of the downed trees and broken branches. I'll take a blizzard over the ice any day.
Yikes! I live in Massachusetts so us "Hearty New Englanders" are used to the crazy winter weather we are having.
Last week my husband was on a business trip in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque rarely has snow and only has two plows for the whole 181.3 square mile city with a population of at least 518,271 people. Anyway, it snowed two inches the second day my husband was there and the opening of the building he was working in was delayed almost four hours. Funny to a New Englander, not so funny to the residents of Albuquerque.
I'm up in far northern Minnesota and we got nailed. Like Greenpa we had windchills nearing or at
-50. I'll never get use to the -50 range! There was a couple lost days of work since we couldnt get out of the drive. And even if we had the temp was -27 w/out windchill. Nope time to stay indoors, lite candles, read, play games and finish making gifts for Christmas. At least we had a full fridge, pantry is well stocked, we're well stocked up on candles and medcations.
I'm in Salem, Oregon so we too have had crazy weather. Husband and I went to Seaside (on the coast) this week and actually saw someone Xcountry skiing on the beach...maybe you can get some use out of those skis! Yesterday we had a terrible ice storm and it knocked out our power. Always a good feeling when you see a transformer blow. Frustrated me that we have no alternate heat source when the power is out. Grew up with a wood stove so used to being self sufficient. But, the neighbors have one so I spent the evening with them and then came home to the pile of blankets. The house didn't get too much colder than it normally does at night. Still have to go to work today. Hang in there!
Argggh -- SNOW! I have my own retail store, and we had three days of snow and ice here in CT this weekend, essentially knocking out our hopes for any sort of reasonably good Christmas shopping... Ah well. We are still doing well enough to pay our store's rent! And good news -- starting tomorrow temps are supposed to be up in the 30s and 40s again. (Bad news: this morning at 8 am I looked at our thermometer and thought it was broken: "0.8 F" EEEK!)
It is warming and melting here outside Seattle so if you have snow tires or 4WD you can get around pretty well unless you are on a steep hill of the main roads but in Seattle it is still a major mess because they don't use salt or de-icer and the plows have rubber blades to protect the pavement and that doesn't make a dent in the ice.
I was born and raised in Seattle so I'm used to the trouble we have with snow because of all our many hills. In downtown Seattle you can go in a building on 1st Avenue, take the elevator up FOUR storeys and come out on 2nd. That's steep.
It seems to me that when I was a kid we used to have a lot more snow than we have had until recently.
That picture was taken just a couple of blocks from our apartment - there were two buses there (you can just barely see the 2nd one behind the one in the foreground). Scary!!
It's amazing how ill prepared Seattle is for any snow. My husband - who is from Chicago - is completely flabbergasted.
Pony, I have been thinking the same thing - until recently, it was a lot snowier here when we were kids. Climate change?
my sister who lives in your area built anatomically correct snowmen and women, snowboarded down the driveway and drank mimosa's with her neighbors - she works from home. She described how the city stops...
here in the midwest i think it just makes people rather retarded
Karen - Anatomically correct snow people must be in the water or something around here.
Well, at the risk of offending everyone, the last time we lived here and we got this much snow (1990), I constructed a giant snow penis in the parking lot of our old condo. Yes, it was late at night and, no, I wasn't drinking.
The two round orbs we made for our snowman were too heavy to lift, so naturally, the end result took shape. I think someone still has a picture of me riding that thing somewhere. Most likely not in their photo album. It sure was funny at the time though!
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