Snow in the Seattle area is fairly rare. I love the snow. I love watching it fall and build up. I love watching kids play in the snow. I love walking in the snow. I'm not going to say I love driving in it, but since we have the Suburban, it's fairly easy to get around in it. Snow is just pretty!
On Sunday we got some snow, about 3 inches at our house. That amount varied depending on where you live. Just 10 minutes away, where I work, there was only a trace. The street in front of my house was a sheet of ice. I went out for a practice drive on Sunday to get a feel for the conditions and felt confident I could get around.
School on Monday and Tuesday was 2 hours late. This was fine. The hilly terrain makes it tricky for school buses to get around. The sidewalks are icy and dangerous for kids walking to school in the dark. The Seattle area does not have the budget or the manpower for snow removal, so they concentrate on the freeways and other major thoroughfares. We live on a big hill, fortunately it's the same hill that you have to drive up to get to the emergency room at the local hospital, so it's kept drivable. This is not the case in most areas.
By Tuesday night, because of having sun all day Monday and Tuesday, most of roads were clear and very drivable. Yesterday we were supposed to get dumped on. It was supposed to start in the wee morning hours and go most of the day. When I got up it was not snowing and had not snowed at all at my house. It was snowing 10-20 miles away in all directions, but not in the Seattle metro area. The schools in our district were scheduled to be two hours late. By 7 am they decided to close school based on the impending snow. Now I can understand their reasoning to a point. They claimed that some roads were still icy and that many teachers lived where it was snowing and dangerous to drive. However the roads were no more icy on Wed morning than they had been on Monday or Tuesday. I do appreciate they want to keep their teachers safe, but come on! It ended up not snowing all day, in fact it rained. Dancing Daughter went to work with me. Do you see any snow?
It's always been hard to predict snow here. Even with the fanciest equipment, they get it wrong... a lot! I've heard these phrases this morning from the weather people explaining why it didn't snow like they said it would. "Snow shadow effect", "the donut hole", "warm air won the battle in Seattle". The donut hole was a new one for me. I guess that's what it's called when it's snowing all around the Seattle metro area, but not in the Seattle metro area.
Today we have another school delay of one hour. Today it's snowing. Listening to the traffic reports I can tell the driving is tough out there. Much different from yesterday when there were no or minimal traffic delays. I find it curious that school would be closed yesterday, but not more than an hour late today. That may change, I'll keep you posted!
The thing with living in the midwest is we lose the right to complain about the weather. I mean, we live here so we should expect it, right? But man oh man i hate snow. I hate drivng in it.
Drive carefully tonight. Good luck with all the snow.
Posted by: Meg | December 18, 2008 at 10:44 AM