Its funny, I thought my wife was always exaggerating how nuts people get over snow out here. Back home we barely blink or merit it’s discussion unless it’s 12″+. The whole house was going NUTS last night and today over this… plus half the Internets in the NW is apparently on suicide watch. This is the bulletin:
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SEATTLE HAS ISSUED A HEAVY SNOW WARNING…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 9 AM PST TUESDAY.
SNOWFALL TOTALS OF 4 TO 7 INCHES ARE EXPECTED TONIGHT AND TUESDAY MORNING. THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL AMOUNTS WILL OCCUR OVER THE HIGHER TERRAIN CLOSE TO HOOD CANAL…AND THE LESSER AMOUNTS WILL OCCUR OVER THE KITSAP PENINSULA ALONG THE SHORES OF PUGET SOUND. SNOW SHOULD CHANGE TO RAIN AND TAPER OFF AROUND MID-MORNING ON TUESDAY.
A HEAVY SNOW WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL IS OCCURRING OR IMMINENT. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. ONLY TRAVEL IN AN EMERGENCY. IF YOU MUST…KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT…FOOD…AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.
Now the really funny thing is, I totally get why people here utterly crap themselves over this finally. Back home, we get 4″-7″, the kids go sledding, everyone drives to work, maybe the kids get a day off from school, if it’s icy too. More likely a 90-minute delay or 90-minute early dismissal. But the extent of “big hills” back there would be something like Booth Hill in Stratford. That’s *a* hill. Two routes up it. Maybe the big one by Sikorsky, coming down onto Main Street/111. Like every single city block in downtown alone has hills like that, or bigger. Oops. And apparently here the snow is usually the big fat slick rainy sort of snow, the kind that’s generally a pain to drive on anyway. Add in that all the hills are like a 45 degree angle or some damned insane thing like that… yeah.
EDIT: outlying regions or something (I don’t know them all yet) are getting 4″-7″, the city is getting up to 2″. Still, driving down a hill like Queen Anne in 1″ of wet snow? Eff that.
