This is it, gang, the shortest day of the year. Officially the first day of winter, but winter arrived early in many places this year including here. It’s been crazy here, we never get this kind of weather, or at least not for this long. It has snowed or done something every day for a week now. We’ve got about eight inches of the stuff on the ground which is not a lot compared to many places, but for the Portland, OR area it is HUGE. Now we’ve got a layer of freezing rain on top of the snow. No driving without chains, or at the very least you have to have 4WD AND studded tires to be on the roads right now. Many roads, major highways, are closed because they are just impassable. Have I mentioned they don’t plow and sand here? They just throw down some pea gravel on top of the snow on the major highways. Sidestreets aren’t touched at all. Sure, it’s “greener” but driving is becoming a distant memory.
I brought the Christmas tree in this morning, and will decorate it later. Here are a few photos of this rare snowfall:
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- backyard
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- piled up on back deck table
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- piling up out front
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- front yard
2 responses so far ↓
metaljaybird // January 8, 2009 at 11:40 am |
For some reason, I though Oregon was more temperate. Looks like you’re having a tougher winter than I am in North Jersey!
Digital Dame // January 8, 2009 at 12:30 pm |
Apparently it broke records going back something like 60 years for snowfall. Normally we get a couple inches, once, and then we’re done for the season. It generally doesn’t last more than a day. Every few years we’ll get something a little more serious that drags on for 3 days or so but in the 16 years I’ve lived here I’ve never seen this. And never this early in the season. Our “big” snow (usually about 4″) generally arrives in late Jan.-early Feb. Many years we get no snow at all, some years not even a good freeze. I’m sure they’ll be talking about this storm for the next 60 years. They still talk about the Columbus Day storm that hit in 1963 (windstorm).