Mini-Snowpocalypse
It doesn’t snow in the Pacific Northwest too often–the Pacific Ocean keeps things too warm to do anything but rain. But once in a while, a grand storm from the Bering Sea will be pushed by the jetstream, out of the Alaskan area, and into this one. The year started with a doozy of a storm that buried the area under a little over a foot of snow, and the cold temperatures thereafter kept the annoying wet stuff in the area for weeks after. The city’s infrastructure is apparently not set up to deal with this, as roads were shut down, the transit system was defunct, and the snow plows and sanding trucks were nowhere to be seen.
It seems that the year was meant to end on a white note, too.
Yesterday morning, they forecasted rain for the area. About an inch’s worth of rain. There was a peculiar bite in the air that, even at 37°F, told me that we might be in for some inclimate weather. In the late afternoon, I noticed the first flakes beginning to fall, bloated, barely frozen rain pellets. The druid and I piled onto the balcony in excitement and began taking pictures. He had the day off yesterday so he had the opportunity to laugh and scoff at the vehicularly mobile people in their cars and SUVs and busses. Even at 37°, it quickly accumulated.
The snow has a peculiar reaction on residents here. They suddenly begin to clog the roads, either to get to the store for supplies, or to get home from work before the way proves too hazardous and crowded. Of course, the mad dash is not a unique idea, and so the roads become as clogged as they had feared. Last night’s fiasco was interesting to watch, and mildly funny as we didn’t have to be in it. The rush hour started predictably at the stroke of 5:00pm, and didn’t abate until well after 11:30pm, when cars started being able to move again.
During that time, blizzard-like conditions were had, with zero visibility and the snow coming down in bittorrents. There was five inches on the ground when it was all said and done.
Suddenly, not having a car, nor a job, nor any particular reason to be out, doesn’t seem like such a bad thing at all. Hehe. It’s melting today, slowly. What’s funny is that it felt colder at 37°F yesterday than it does at 34° today. Weather is weird.
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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.
