Results tagged “winter”

Mayor Nickels took heavy fire for the City's handling of the storm. It certainly cost him some goodwill, and whoever our next mayor is, he'd better be equipped to respond to winter storms effectively and quickly if he expects his constituents to stay happy.

Whoa, it's a motherfucking ghost town out right now. It's cold, but it ain't that cold. There, you just got twittered.

UW atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass became a local internet celebrity seemingly overnight during last year's Snowmageddon, when he was forecasting weather in circles around all the other so-called weathermen. In addition to his blog, he's got a book, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, that came out last fall. His next lecture, "The Secrets of Northwest Weather Prediction," is tomorrow night at Town Hall (7:30 p.m.). Tickets are $5.

Yes, it's snowing again, though at least downtown, it's not sticking--but it's still enough for the fools to use their umbrellas. Thankfully, the precipitation should turn to rain later today. If you ski or snowboard, you might want to take a sick day soon: between 8 and 16 inches of snow are forecast for the Olympics today, while the Cascade passes may get 3 to 9 inches of new snow. This should be the end of winter for now: forecasters are predicting mostly cloudy but dry conditions on Wednesday, followed by partly sunny skies on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday with daytime highs in the mid-40s.

      

It was freezing rain at about 5:30 p.m. on Sunday night. We walked home from the grocery store fairly pleased at having dodged a snowy bullet. But by 7 p.m. there were two inches on the ground and more on the way. So we laced up the snow boots and headed out for a look around Capitol Hill. Our major takeaway is that snow remains slippery stuff. Seattle DOT had 16 snow plows out by about 9 p.m., with a total of 24 expected to hit the streets tonight. We're still expecting rising temperatures and rain overnight, so at the very least it should be a wet Monday morning.

Via WSDOT's Twitter, we hear that a winter storm watch predicts two feet of new snow for the Cascades by tomorrow evening. Not coincidentally, Stevens Pass will be closed for 20 minutes Wednesday "sometime between 8 a.m. and noon"--sounds like they're sending Comcast out--for avalanche preparedness work. It's always good to be prepared for avalanches, because otherwise people die. Alpental is reporting a 74-inch base up top--that's crazy. Two weeks ago they didn't have a base.

It's a Seattlest special report...from the future! We sent Editor Emeritus Seth Kolloen into 2009--let's face it, he's not getting much done the rest of 2008 besides raiding our liquor cabinet and shooting at "squirrels" who "looked at him funny." Just like Martin Sheen at the start of Apocalypse Now, we hadda send him upriver.

Seattleites are so upset by the way the city has handled the recent snowfall that they are...gosh!...it's just...where are our buses! Damnit, we're forming a Facebook group over this! Meanwhile, over in Spokane, the City Hall was shot at six times over the weekend, the bullets leaving 2- to 6-inch holes in the windowpanes. On Tuesday, a guy stormed out of his house with a gun and threatened a snowplow driver if he blocked him in. Then he called the city and told them any snowplow that came down his street would be shot. Now that beats an intemperate letter to the editor.

The word at work is there’s like a $250 fine for not shoveling the snow in front of your business but for the purpose of motivating employees the fine has now been exaggerated to $700 a day.

As we were delivering people to the airport on Monday morning--by the power of Subaru!--one of our passengers glanced up at the light rail line under construction and said, "This ought to be the last winter you have to shuttle people to the airport." Which we were pleased about. But then we got to thinking.

"The more I look at the forecast models, the more snow I see. Well, at least those who like a white holiday won't be disappointed." That's the beginning of a snow update post by UW meteorologist Cliff Mass, which went up last night. Not only are we expecting snow on Wednesday--"1-2 inches at low levels near the Sound, 2-4 inches at higher elevations"--but there's a good chance we'll see some on Thursday, too. Mass has also become a snowplow pusher, pointing out: "We have a major snowfall (like this year) every 5-8 years and significant snowfalls 4-8 inches every other year or so." Seattle's current strategy is to squish those inches into compact snow and ice, and just wait for the melt.

Editor Emeritus Seth Kolloen demanded the mic to make a few statements following the snowbomb-throwing anarchy of Jeremy, Ronald, and Brad this morning. We're sick of putting up snow photos, so we said sure. That's how easy it is to guest editorialize on Seattlest. Try it some time.

Ah, the evolution of the public mood! Remember last Wednesday, when we all had a good laugh at the schools' reliance on infamously inaccurate weathermen to shut down schools, giving all the kids a snow day with no snow? The jovial mood that first night of heavy snow-fall, as the kids turned streets into luges, goodwill was in air, and the spirits were flowing freely? Wasn't all that nice?

The B-Town Blog has an ominous Port of Seattle bulletin regarding Sea-Tac operations: "Airport is open--two runways are operational. There are many airline-initiated cancellations. Backlog of stranded passengers awaiting rebooking. Travelers are advised to contact their airline for flight status and to attempt to rebook from home." We're having trouble pulling up the flight status link, and we heard via Twitter earlier this morning that Alaska Air's phone wait was 149 minutes. As you might expect, there's no room at the inn, and many travelers are sleeping in airport. It gets worse: airport stores haven't been getting deliveries, so supplies are scarce.

We spent all morning tromping around Capitol Hill this Sunday. Then it started snowing really hard so we called it a day. But we'd traversed from St. Mark's to the north down to Madison, and from 19th Avenue East to I-5. So we were in dire need of hot chocolate anyway.

        

This is why we love living on Capitol Hill: Around ten o'clock last night, after being snowbound for most of the day and itching with cabin fever, we ventured out, following the sound of loud voices, and found a spontaneous snow party at the intersection of Denny Way and Bellevue Avenue East, where the steep, icy slope leading down to the closed overpass had turned into an awesome sledding slope.

We're loving the renegade street closures, like this one fashioned from an old wooden chair. Bad ice last night on Queen Anne meant pretty decent ghetto-sledding. We scavenged some cardboard, and later, plastic sheeting from a construction site and set out to create a smooth, slick run in the powdery snow.

It's starting to shape up nicely out there. 24 degrees. Larger and larger flakes falling faster and faster. By tomorrow morning, people will be able to cross-country ski down the street unironically. Cliff Mass says the easterly winds forecasted could still hit--but if it doesn't that just means more snow. Where'd we put our snowshoes...?

     

You kinda wish this guy in sneakers, skating down Denny, would fall on his ass. But he doesn't. And you respect him. All over the city today, people were falling on their asses and making the "ow" face.

While Seattle was having collective heart palpitations from seeing five inches of pure powder (and here we riff on Better Off Dead: "Do you know what the street value of our streets is?"), Spokane shattered records with 17 inches in 24 hours, and three more after that, for a total of 20 inches of snow. And what does the Spokesman-Review headline read? "Roads remain a challenge" We salute the residents of the Inland Empire.

People like to flaunt their provincial superiority and yammer on about bad Seattle drivers especially in weather like this. (We're looking at you, fellow transplants and ex-pats.) Yeah, whatever. Screw you jerks.

Iceland pop collective Benni Hemm Hemmi knows snow. The song below, "Snjór ljós snjór" (translated: "Snow Light Snow"), captures the quiet calm that comes with falling snow, as well as that sense of barely contained excitement, making it the perfect song for a day like today.

           

Photos from December 17-18, 2009.

This dusting, this light haze? We laugh at your puny snowfall, Seattle! We are mighty, we are determined, we are not dissuaded from commerce (or from pleasure, for that matter) just because some of the streets are slippery. So say the folks at BizXchange, anyway. They were planning on holding their holiday party tonight for members--it's a barter and exchange program--at Herban Feast in SoDo. With the snow and all, and so many events getting canceled, they decided to open the doors to all business owners and managers. Complimentary drinks and hors d'oeuvres from 6 to 11 tonight, in a terrific space (3200 First Ave. S.). So drive carefully and come on down.

              

We've been told we need to have a line of copy here for the gallery to display correctly.

"More Ice" by NoJuan

Being Swanson's virgins, we didn't know about the annual Reindeer Festival.