Folks not familiar with the Seattle area may think it snows
a fair amount in Seattle. Well, compared to say Miami, well yeah,
definitely. However, compared to like Minneapolis, not even close.
Seattle is surrounded by lakes, rivers, and Puget Sound. Consequently
Seattle does NOT get much snow. Usually we are lucky to get an inch or
two.
If you have studied statistics you are aware that some rules
have an exception. The exception to the Seattle snow happens about once
a decade. The last major snow storm dumped about 2 feet during Christmas
week 1996. Well, it is now 2004 and after a rare spectacular summer, we
are getting that once a decade dump. We had about 4 inches during New
Year's week. Today we got another 6 inches. This is more then the
total for the past 6 years!
The real humorous part of Seattle snow is the news
media. You talk about news being entertaining! If you live in a
region that snows considerably like Boston, well you know hey it snows, get
over it, deal with it! No, in Seattle every single station has every
single reporter on some street corner reporting that it is snowing. What
a bunch of dopes. Do we really need to see the snow at every
intersection in town! Today I saw one reporter admiring how some car had
been parked for 45 minutes and had half an inch of snow on it. Talk
about pointing out the obvious. What do you think , IT IS SNOWING!
DOH!! These people need a life.
The good thing about Seattle snow is that it does not
last. Even though it has been snowing all day, it should all be gone by
tomorrow as the snow turns into rain and the temperatures climb into the
40s. This is how snow should be. Here for a quick visit so we can
play and admire it and then get the hell out of here.
Ding ding, round 2. Tuesday night (1/6/04) into
Wednesday morning was a very nervous night. We were led to believe that
after the snow the temperatures would rise and the snow would melt away.
WRONG! Instead of snow, we got freezing rain. A TON of freezing
rain. So much that the trees were just coated with ice. What
happens when trees get heavy with ice? They break. We spent the
night listening to falling ice, snapping branches, and toppling trees.
We should have slept in the guest room where we would be
save from any trees that may crash through the house. But being the
laser head I am, I didn't think of it. DOH!! Fortunately, no trees
fell ON the house. One tree did snap in half and ended up resting on the
side of the house up against our sliding door. See pictures below.
To add insult to injury, our power was out for 37
hours. Since we have a generator, this wouldn't much of a problem if it
wasn't for the fact that we live on a community well. Let's see, no
power = no pump = no WATER. Try flushing the toilet without water!
So we have to run out to the store to get many multiple gallons of water so we
can do our business;-)