Damn, now I want to move to Seattle.
I moved to the south Sound from Minnesota and my first February here had temperatures in the 60s. It was awesome. But now this? There is no snow in MN but so much here! I even got my parents to move to Vashon and now they are stuck inside their house. Crazy.
As someone who grew up driving in blizzards I find the drivers (as is often said) absolutely the worst part of snow driving in Washington.
Woolen conveniently left out how the sun doesn’t come up until like 9 AM in the winter and goes down at 4PM.
Well, and the downside to NW winters is that you never see the sun. There was a record set in the last decade of 100 straight days with no sun. It even got under the natives’ skins, but the transplants were going crazy.
Also, while Seattle doesn’t get much snow, the eastside (where Redmond, Bellevue, and various other suburbs are, and where many of us live or work) does tend to get a decent snow every year or two, as do the hilly areas. The little town I’m in is at 500 feet, so we’ll get an inch or two sometimes when Redmond only gets a dusting. We have three pickups with plows in town and they only do the main roads. So the side roads, like mine, get packed into a sheet of ice by the first cars to drive over them, and they don’t get treated, so if it doesn’t get above freezing, we can actually be trapped at home unless you put on chains.
Having chains on around here is awesome, because most people haven’t gotten the memo yet, and you can sail past people stuck in the middle of the street with their hazards on. You can also drift around corners at 10 mph, always entertaining.
The problem I had with chains when I used them two years ago was finding somewhere safe to pull over and take them off once you hit the clear roads.
I’m not going to mess with chains, shoveling, or anything. That is the great thing about snow storms in Seattle. Build a fire. Cook some food. Relax. In two days it will all be melted away.
Any word on the official mod tools yet?
Volvo AWD with stability and traction control here. It’s always hilarious to see people with FWD or RWD on the side of the road, and they look on in envy and amazement when they see this small sedan just climb the hill they’re stuck on with no problems.
Don’t get too cocky with the AWD, dude. It’s handy in these situations but it’s no panacea.
Simple solution: don’t drive on clear roads. Seriously, we just drive on the snow-clogged neighborhood streets until we get to the main arterial, on the other side of which is Safeway. So we just go there.
Chains can drive on pavement if you keep to 20mph or below. Or, as my wife did this morning, you can go to the doctor in the middle of the snowstorm when there are no clear roads :-)
I’d never even seen tire chains before moving here. All season tires are usually good enough as long as you live somewhere where the roads actually get cleared in a timely manner after snowfall. (i.e. every place I’ve ever lived before here.) As others have pointed out, the problem is snow that gets packed down and turned into ice and left untreated. I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea how to even put them on my car.
Like chet, we’ll stay home and wait for it to melt. Which doesn’t usually take all that long.
I know that AWD can only help you get going. It won’t help you stop. Trust me, I’ve driven in snow quite a bit.
…chains on the rear wheels of a front wheel drive car…
Downtown basically shuts down in this weather. My entire office tower is just flat out closed.
Downtown is on a nasty slope to Puget Sound. I dread coming to a stop on some of those interactions when it’s bone dry.
KiroTV just spent like 10 minutes with a reporter and camera crew watching a Fred Meyer truck try to go up a hill.
Spoiler alert: It made it.
Well, my power got knocked out. Typing this on my iPhone. This could get nasty tonight. Gonna need lots of layers.
Yeah, definately in melt mode but a slushy slippery mess tonight. When I went to work at noon the usually dangerous hilll had been plowed by someone in the neighborhood while the main roads in town were a mess, especially since by then it was raining. Made it to work ok though. Coming home the main roads were in decent shape having been finally plowed during the day but the hill was a bit too much for my front wheel drive compact so I had to park it at the bottom and hoof up it to home. But it looks like it should be clear by noon or so tomorrow with the temps they are predicting and I don’t have to go anywhere the next two days anyway.
But there were scattered power outages around the area I saw coming home (including the local McDonalds) so that’ll be a problem as trees fall under the weight of suddenly heavy snow.