Snow, ice and more snow
Jan. 19th, 2012 09:42 pmSo it really hasn't let up here at all. This morning, we had about four inches of snow still on the ground... the stuff that fell yesterday was on top of a small layer of ice and was very heavy and very wet and had compacted a bit overnight. And then the ice storm hit. It was actually kind of cool to wake up to... with the ice pattering against the window (I nearly fell back to sleep, to be honest). But, of course, what it really did was coat *everything* in a layer of ice nearly .25" thick (seriously, when ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rackham went out later to clear off the cars, they were literally encased in a layer of solid ice). And then, despite the predictions that it would turn to rain, it started to snow again. So, we've ended up with a thin layer of ice, about four inches of compacted snow, a quarter inch layer of solid ice and then another three to four inches of lighter snow. In other words, it's *nasty* out there.
( Photo of the back deck, under the cut. )
Both Rackham and I are working on Geocaching streaks at the moment... trying to find at least one Geocache a day for a year. I'm currently on Day 321 while Rackham is on day 200-and-something... yesterday, we walked about 3/4 of a mile to the closest unfound Cache (a difficulty 1.5 that was more like a 3.5 under five inches of snow!) and then back again. Today, Rackham put the chains on my car and we drove down to Albertson's to find the cache in the parking lot there (and did a bit of shopping, since we were there anyway). Cache found, lunch and bananas purchased, so we headed home... which is when I realized I didn't have the GPS. Great. We hopped back in the car and made our slow way back to Albertson's and checked over by the cache then over where we'd parked and then retraced our steps in the store. Finally, I asked one of the cashiers if anyone had turned in a handheld Garmin GPS and she got this grin on her face that made me want to jump for joy. Turned out the manager had found it out in the snow while on cart retrieval. *whew!*
Later, we got a call from some friends (B and A) who, it turns out, were headed down to the airport this evening... only they couldn't get out of their carport. They'd read that we'd been able to get out and called for help. So we drove over, picked up B and took him to Les Schwab to buy some chains. Got back and got the chains installed and got them on the road to the airport... then walked over to check on some other friends in the same complex and ended up taking one of them over to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things.
Of course, this meant we also got to see the supreme stupidity of King County Metro in action... because yes, on roads like these, the best course of action is obviously to send out articulated buses! Because regular buses aren't able to jack-knife and don't quite block roads as effectively (seriously, every single time we have a snow event, they still send those suckers out and every single time, they end up blocking roads all over the county).
( Photo of a jack-knifed bus under the cut. )
Hopefully the predictions for rain in the morning will be accurate (although they were originally saying it would arrive tonight and we're still getting snow) and then we'll just have to worry about nasty slush and flooding!
Crossposted from my Livejournal
rackham went out later to clear off the cars, they were literally encased in a layer of solid ice). And then, despite the predictions that it would turn to rain, it started to snow again. So, we've ended up with a thin layer of ice, about four inches of compacted snow, a quarter inch layer of solid ice and then another three to four inches of lighter snow. In other words, it's *nasty* out there.( Photo of the back deck, under the cut. )
Both Rackham and I are working on Geocaching streaks at the moment... trying to find at least one Geocache a day for a year. I'm currently on Day 321 while Rackham is on day 200-and-something... yesterday, we walked about 3/4 of a mile to the closest unfound Cache (a difficulty 1.5 that was more like a 3.5 under five inches of snow!) and then back again. Today, Rackham put the chains on my car and we drove down to Albertson's to find the cache in the parking lot there (and did a bit of shopping, since we were there anyway). Cache found, lunch and bananas purchased, so we headed home... which is when I realized I didn't have the GPS. Great. We hopped back in the car and made our slow way back to Albertson's and checked over by the cache then over where we'd parked and then retraced our steps in the store. Finally, I asked one of the cashiers if anyone had turned in a handheld Garmin GPS and she got this grin on her face that made me want to jump for joy. Turned out the manager had found it out in the snow while on cart retrieval. *whew!*
Later, we got a call from some friends (B and A) who, it turns out, were headed down to the airport this evening... only they couldn't get out of their carport. They'd read that we'd been able to get out and called for help. So we drove over, picked up B and took him to Les Schwab to buy some chains. Got back and got the chains installed and got them on the road to the airport... then walked over to check on some other friends in the same complex and ended up taking one of them over to Trader Joe's to pick up a few things.
Of course, this meant we also got to see the supreme stupidity of King County Metro in action... because yes, on roads like these, the best course of action is obviously to send out articulated buses! Because regular buses aren't able to jack-knife and don't quite block roads as effectively (seriously, every single time we have a snow event, they still send those suckers out and every single time, they end up blocking roads all over the county).
( Photo of a jack-knifed bus under the cut. )
Hopefully the predictions for rain in the morning will be accurate (although they were originally saying it would arrive tonight and we're still getting snow) and then we'll just have to worry about nasty slush and flooding!
Crossposted from my Livejournal
