Snow in Seattle, and then ...

[begreen]

We got about 7" of snow locally here. No biggy by east coast standards (or AK), but a lot for us. All is well here, that is until this morning when I found a nice crust of ice on top of the snow. :-/ Freezing rain and a rare ice storm alert is in our forecast today. Ugh, I do not like ice storms! The big firs look absolutely leaden with all this additional weight. Some areas are already seeing widespread outages. Can't wait for the weekend when this all is supposed to melt.

 

[firefighterjake]

I think someone messed up . . . that shipment of snow was supposed to be delivered here in Maine. Can you pack it up and send it here . . . overnight it if possible. Thanks.

Shoot . . . I don't think we've even got more than 6 or 7 inches of snow so far this winter.

And yeah . . . I hate ice storms. Give me a massive snow storm any day.

 

[begreen]

Just lost power. I am not liking the look of things outside at all...

 

[Flatbedford]

That is a bad combination of unusual waether! I hope you get your power back soon.

 

[Highbeam]

We've been out of power since this morning. The ice shell on top of the snow is amazing. Nice to have a good Stihl on hand.


Going to have to drive home at lunch and fire up the genset. All of the school districts have been closed for the last few days so the kids are starting to get bored.

 

[begreen]

I'm running on UPS for now. It looks like the outage is due to a wire down about 1/2 mi. from our house. I'm sure the crews are busy, but there's a wire across the road so I hope they can at least isolate this one and reset the pole breaker so that we get power back sooner than later. Now I have to go out and try to wrestle the wood cart over this ice crust. I just emptied the wood box!

 

[daveswoodhauler]

Good luck to ya BeGreen and Highbeam...ice storms are no fun...hope your power is restored soon

 

[thewoodlands]

We got about 7" of snow locally here. No biggy by east coast standards (or AK), but a lot for us. All is well here, that is until this morning when I found a nice crust of ice on top of the snow. :-/ Freezing rain and a rare ice storm alert is in our forecast today. Ugh, I do not like ice storms! The big firs look absolutely leaden with all this additional weight. Some areas are already seeing widespread outages. Can't wait for the weekend when this all is supposed to melt.

Went through a bad one in 98, not fun when your shut in your house for a week or so with all travel banned.


zap

 

[Flatbedford]

Back in October the line was down about 300' from my house for 5 DAYS! Hope you are back up soon.

 

[lukem]

We got about 7" of snow locally here. No biggy by east coast standards (or AK), but a lot for us. All is well here, that is until this morning when I found a nice crust of ice on top of the snow. :-/ Freezing rain and a rare ice storm alert is in our forecast today. Ugh, I do not like ice storms! The big firs look absolutely leaden with all this additional weight. Some areas are already seeing widespread outages. Can't wait for the weekend when this all is supposed to melt.

I'm not sure which is worse, ice on top of snow, or snow on top of ice. Both have their disadvantages. Ice on top of snow is heavy and makes things break and fall. Snow on top of ice is some of the worst driving/walking you can imagine...and makes the roads nearly impossible to clear.

Last Feb we got whacked with over an inch of ice...then some snow on top of that. It was very lucky for us we were only without power for about 5 hours.

Keep warm and safe out there.

 

[Highbeam]

I'm running on UPS for now. It looks like the outage is due to a wire down about 1/2 mi. from our house. I'm sure the crews are busy, but there's a wire across the road so I hope they can at least isolate this one and reset the pole breaker so that we get power back sooner than later. Now I have to go out and try to wrestle the wood cart over this ice crust. I just emptied the wood box!

I made it in to work this morning through all of the dead stoplights. Work had pwoer but now I have to hear the drone of the cummins genset. Wife calls and asks to lend the 290 to my neighbor, okay, his driveway is blocked by a down tree. No power still.

Wood cart is also empty so I get to refill that today. Can't wait to peel up the ice encased tarp. We had loaded the wood cart up in preparation of the snow storm and I guess I should have anticipated a longer event.

The boss is out skiing today. Supposed to be epic with several feet of fresh fluffy powder and low temps keeping it light.

 

[pen]

When we have storms like that here is when we'll start seeing the chimney fires pop up in the news. When the power goes out, folks burning appliances get tested. Lots of bad can happen when folks stress things that are not maintained and emergency crews have to deal with poor conditions to come help in the event of an emergency.

Hope things get cleared up quickly for you BG.

pen

 

[BrotherBart]

Just lost power. I am not liking the look of things outside at all...

Time for that T-6 to walk and talk. Hang in there BG.

 

[blacktail]

People always talk about how poorly we handle the snow in this area. But there's two things I always point out.
1. Because we don't get snow that often, it doesn't make sense for the state, counties, and cities to purchase huge fleets of plows.
2. We have a lot of hills.

I'll be going outside soon and clearing some drainage paths in the snow to make sure the water goes the right direction when it starts to melt.
I predict a large surge in 4wd vehicle sales in the next 1-2 weeks

 

[bogydave]

Hang in there BeGreen.
You are set up with plenty to handle that weather.
Just stay home & stay away form the in-experienced drivers out there.
Saw that they closed some of the Passes due to avalanche danger. Sounds like Alaska to me
Hopefully it melts in a few days & don't cause any flooding.
Did your Green house plants handle the low temps?

 

[begreen]

Power is back on for the moment. I went out to load up with some more wood and heard some major limbs breaking high up and taking down several more as it crashed down. It looks like our rhodies and other trees that keep their leaves are taking it hard. Our big bay tree looks particularly sad. with 20ft high branches pinned down on the ground. Oops, power just cut out again for minute. There are breakers tripping all around right now. I am not resetting clocks again until tomorrow! And my wife just pointed out that our hawthorn tree in this picture just split in half. :shut: Ice storms suck.

On a cheery note, we are the in-place for birds. Their food sources are encased in ice so they are very happy to find two full feeders and suet cakes. Our resident Anna hummingbird has taken up home on a fuchsia sitting on the porch. If he could I think he'd move inside. The T6 is fully stoked with cherry and locust and doing well. Ah life in the country...

 

[Highbeam]

I got the wood cart loaded up too. It's down to 27 degrees here and still raining hard. When I was driving, the antenna began loading up with ice and really bent over! House is on genny power and it looks like top ramen for dinner since the BBQ is a block of ice.

Check out the 12" icicles on the chimney. That doesn't happen around here.

 

[Dix]

I gotta call my buddies in Eagle Creek and see how the rescue is fairing.

Highbeam, I had that BBQ !! Loved it while it held together

Hang in there, you guys !

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We really feel for you guys out there. That weather would certainly not be welcome even here in MI. Good luck to you.

 

[firefighterjake]

Hang in there guys . . . ice storms bite. Went through the Ice Storm of '98 . . . ten days before my power came back on . . . and this was in my pre-woodstove days . . . was lucky to buy one of the few generators available.

Surprisingly enough we didn't have more fires or CO calls . . . I expected a lot more.

 

[Mrs. Krabappel]

Great pics guys! Hang in there. Bring that Ana's inside! I know this is a secondary reason many of us heat with wood.

 

[pen]

Bring that Ana's inside!

I hear that! Love them beasts. Where I live, the common thing is to put the feeders outside at Mother's day and bring them in by Halloween in hopes that they head out of town before things get too inhospitable. Always hate seeing them go as they are such entertainment in the summer.

Never realized they would attempt to winter where weather like this was a possibility.

Winter affects people in different ways. In my area, it's generally cold enough that the ice storms are never very severe. I may see colder temps, but that doesn't mean that things are harder to manage.

pen

 

[begreen]

Just got power back at 8:45pm. Another couple inches of snowfall since I last posted. House is warm and dinner was fine. Just spaghetti and salad, but made with tomato sauce from the garden and it was good. My son and I got a game of Scrabble in with some wine and beer. Power outages don't need to be stressful. You just need to roll with them. Having a nice warm fire at your back helps a lot.

 

[webbie]

That's more snow than we've seen the entire winter so far! - Well, except the 18 inches in October! (that was fall).....

We got about 3 inches last week, an inch or two the other night and now 2" tonight. Just nice for the view.....but nothing to sled or ski in yet.

I'm ready for the next outage with that Honda Gen and all my other little toys! Even got a small UPS for the cable modem and router, so the old macbook may still work!

 

[wetwood]

Sorry you all got a lot of cleaning up to do after the storm. My brother in law lives south of Tacoma. Have to call him and see how he is fairing.