Let it snow!

So our friend Robin, in a recent blog post for her family, waxed positive about the snow, writing: "All of you who are living in warmer climates and bragging about your 60's and 70's degree weather...you can have it!"

Uh, no!!!

To see where my negative attitude comes from, let's back up a little. How about all the way to 1969. That's when the last major snow storm hit Western Washington.

It was a storm resulting from cyclogenesis in a large 500mb ridge off the west coast extending into Alaska and a short wave trough over southwest Canada. This produced a large high-pressure system at the surface over southeast Alaska and the Yukon Territory and a low-pressure center off the Washington coast. In addition, a weak arctic front had previously passed through Western Washington bringing low temperatures to the area.

Can you see the weatherman in front of the green screen right now explaining all this?

So, when we got blasted at the beginning of this past week with cold and then snow, it was a big deal. And not one that brought a bunch of warm fuzzies.

People in Syracuse yawned, pointed to their average yearly snow fall of 120 inches, yawned again and then went back to their college basketball team.

In Syracuse, what else is there to do?

Yes, I know Syracuse gets a lot of snow. I experienced one full winter there. Actually it was two winters, but each of them only got half the amount of snow as usual (and then got blasted after we left... ha ha!). So flaunt the fact that you are so manly and can withstand what Washingtonians can't.

Now let's add a little perspective.

The folks there can point their finger and ask what the fuss is about in Washington with two feet of snow when they routinely get that in the ghetto. It is precisely because it snows all the time there that they have a method to deal with it. Is there a reason to invest massive amounts of public dollars into snow plows when two inches falls every year? No. It doesn't make sense. In Syracuse, their plows go 24 hours a day. I know at one point they even had the biggest snow plow in the world at the airport. Some 32 feet across. That's just massive (that's what she said!).

So when two feet comes down in a place not used to it and with no real equipment to handle it, it's hard to like the snow. All it does turn to bumpy ice and then you have to drive in it and worry a) about your life, and b) about your suspension.

Example: It takes me an average of 27 minutes to get home at night. I hit I-5 from work all the way to the Rochester exit (stay with me... we're talking Rochester, WA here and not Rochester, NY).

On Thursday, it took an hour-and-a-half. I got part way down I-5. A 20-car pileup closed down the freeway for four hours but I got off luckily and hit Old 99. Got halfway down that and then a County Sheriff was diverting traffic. Apparently there were a couple bad wrecks with all the additional traffic that ended up on that road. So the detour went down a road I had never even heard of and kept going and going in a seemingly opposite direction of my destination. Soon I was on a narrow road with evergreen trees looming overhead, broken branches all over the road. Thoughts of my wife and two kids went through my head.

My cell phone had no reception.

I almost hit Rainier before heading back down and backtracking West again.

This would never have happened in Syracuse. But it's because they have the means to clean the roads.

I acknowledge, there was a simpler time when the snow was glorious to behold and everything was cinnamon and hot cocoa.

I was 9.

I appreciate the rosy excitement some people have for snow. There's a pretty good reason why some people don't like it and it's not just to be a bah humbug about it!

So, to make a short story long, if you are in 60- and 70-degree weather... I hate you.