Seattle Snopacalypse - 2012 Edition

From living in Cleveland I am used to snow but you combine hills (multiple streets with a 20%+ slope), no plows, and mass panic? If the roads were without traffic I would breeze around for the most part - some hills are still tough but knowing everyone else will panic tomorrow at the first flakes?? That panic might lead to another 6+ hour commute home.

I’ll stay home.

We’ll see. Its actually warmer now, and above freezing so the snow we have is melting, then it was a 7pm tonight. And no snow of any significance has fallen tonight despite earlier predictions.

Of course that could change in a few hours. But the slushpocalypse noted above is about right and if we get a foot on Wednesday and then it warms up and turns to rain, it will also be a quick slushpocalpyse.

They’re talking up to 24" or 2 feet of snow in the next few days. Sure okay that’s not Buffalo-style snowdrifts but for actual real metropolitan cities that ain’t chitlins. Oh and it’ll be the heaviest snowfall in Seattle in 60+ years.

— Alan

Ok, now 2 ft is a lot of snow!

Ummm… New England, hills, ice, snow. You are describing a mild winter day here…

Man up would ya please?

Yeah… you West Coast panicking pantie patrollers have no idea what winter or a snopocalypse is.

Winter is when the temperature shows -40 degrees - at that point it doesn’t fucking matter if you’re measuring in celsius or fahrenheit.

A snopocalypse is when you have to dig through snow at least waist high starting at your door, to your driveway, clear the driveway, and then you realize it’s not just the usual morning snowdrift, because the snow trucks haven’t gotten to your street over night yet - because your side is the shallow side of the snow drift.

West coasters complaining about weather should all go under #DanEllisProblems

You’re all welcome to Sweden.
Between december and march winter tyres are mandatory and anyone living in the northern part will choose studded tyres.
Our country house (island in the archipelago) neighbors trasported all the material to build their house by car. Once the ice sets it’s the cheapest way to reach the islands, unless there is too much snow on the ice.
Learn to love the cold. :)

Hey, we have those people here, too!

We DO NOT need snow in Ohio thank you. Abnormally high temps are just fine by us, yes sir. Maybe you fruitcakes in Columbus like driving to work and back home in snow, but the people down here in Cincinnati act like they’e never seen the stuff in their lives every time it snows, and make driving a nightmare. I will take rainy and 55 all winter long and be grateful for it!

As for the folks in Seattle, yikes. Two feet of snow is nuts no matter where you live. Stay safe, stay home.

Hey now, Robert doesn’t live in C-bus, so enough with that hate Mister!

Working here in normal winter conditions is completely miserable, so I don’t mind this warm spell (though I doubt it will last).

Two feet of snow! I did almost that much once. Not fun, wouldn’t want to do it again.

I don’t know where you saw that. The prediction right now is 5" to 10" on Wednesday (and they admit that may be an overestimate), with the high end being the biggest single snowfall since the late '60s. And keep in mind that we were supposed to get a lot last night, which doesn’t seem to have happened in most areas so the forecast is still pretty iffy. Especially since its well above freezing right now.

I’ve lived in the snow belt of upstate NY, and I live in Minnesota. So I feel somewhat confident in my bad winter weather bona fides. But this is bullshit.

So much of weather comes down to what you are prepared to deal with and what your infrastructure is designed to handle. A heat wave that’s daily weather in Houston kills people in your part of the world. Seattle has a combination of terrain and infrastructure that makes this sort of snow storm absolutely brutal.

Capitol Hill with a foot and a half of snow and the number of buses that try to go through there would be bad if it was on the east coast. It’s especially bad when your population doesn’t have the skill set and recent experience to deal with it.

You guys usually get hit worse than us and we’re pretty much getting the same prediction.

I don’t plan on driving into work tomorrow because, as we know, even an inch causes traffic to come to a halt.

You sissies, it’s -34 C in Deadmonton.

Cliff Mass is scaling back his predictions, saying it might be heavy but not apocalyptic, but that we won’t actually know until early Wednesday morning.

So far it’s been really clear and pleasant today in downtown, 37 degrees, occasional light flurries, but people walking and driving normally.

Snowing pretty reasonably outside right now in Kirkland. Looks like the convergence zone is setting up. Glad I opted for working from home this week. (Glad that it’s a good option! GOD, I love programming for a living.)

Edit: Also, subject FAIL. SnoWpOcalypse, FFS! This looks like a thread about snopes.com getting blown up.

This is exactly right. I lived most of my life in New England. The amount of snow that Seattle gets annually is laughable to a Boston native, however, two inches does indeed cripple the area because of the lack of infrastructure.

We moved here in May of 2008, and when we were scouting for places to live in April of that year, I remember occasional flurries, and thinking it was adorable that all the locals were up in arms over it… none of it even accumulated. Fast forward to December of that year, when we got about a foot of snow the week of Christmas, and we couldn’t leave our apartment complex for a week, because the complex had no plows. The roads outside the complex weren’t much better anyway.

I feel comfortable driving in snow, since I grew up dealing with it. It’s absolutely a hazard around here, though. That said, I just got back from the store, buying more bread, since my husband will work from home the next few days and we’ll go through it. But having extra bread on hand now means that we won’t actually end up with more than a half an inch, so… you’re welcome. ;)

It was late! I was cold! I’d just gotten back from the store with 37 cans of soup! ;-)

I understand :-) It is all quite exciting. Still comin’ down steadily here in Kirkland.

The streets all through our neighborhood are solid ice, and we have chains on both cars so we can get to the store, school, etc. Of course, chains are great on ice and snow but terrible on pavement, so we are basically driving on frozen streets only! This too is a great reason to work from home.

Same for California. I’m anxious to try my new snowboard boots and bindings, but conditions are pretty terrible at Tahoe, Mammoth, and the SoCal resorts. Send those storms our way, Seattle! There’s already talk about the very high fire danger and water restrictions we’ll be facing if the California snowpack doesn’t improve, fast.