Let it snow!
I have my complaints about how the city and county handled snow, but some snow whiners have an attitude that suggests, as one Seattle sage said to me, that nature "has no right to snow" at all.
Prayers for no snow and warmer days have been answered with massive flooding. Thanks people. I braved the elements last night and I can tell you that I'd rather have gently falling flakes than the kind of wind-driven drenching I received downtown last night. It was such a pleasure huddling with the poor souls on Pike Street at 9 pm while waiting for the bus. (Note to Metro: Your bus "shelters" don't shelter!)
Okay, rain is rain and I have no problem with it. But here's an interesting thing: If last night's rain had translated into snow, we all would have been screwed. I emailed weather expert Cliff Mass to find out what it would have been like. Mass says of course much of the moisture is generated because the air is warm, but hypothetically if you use the "10 to 1 ration between snow and precipitable water (rain)" and we could magically turn rainfall into the white stuff, we would have had 100+ inches of new snow in the mountains, and 50+ inches in the wetter lowlands. With wind, that sounds like the blizzard of '09.
So, we're lucky nature went easy on us on that score, at least those of us who don't live in a flood zone. But for trudging through the elements, I'll take one of those holiday snow days over this any time.
Comments:
Posted Thu, Jan 8, 12:49 p.m. inappropriate
I have a theory based on general observations. Those that live in remote areas hated the snow storm. Those that live in suburban areas disliked it. Those in city areas without nearby services were mildly annoyed. Those of us within easy walking distance of services loved the snow, despite our agencies failing to dig us out.
I walked to work almost every day of the snow storm - something I almost never do (it takes about an hour). But it was wonderful - I interacted with strangers, saw parts of the city I rarely see (except in a speeding car), and watched children laughing and playing, sledding and throwing snow.
Rain is much less fun.
Posted Thu, Jan 8, 2:15 p.m. inappropriate
Put it in perspective: isn't one of inch of rain equivalent to 10 inches of snow? So rather than three inches of rain, Seattle got 30 inches of snow, the two weeks prior to Christmas were the perverbial cakewalk.
Posted Thu, Jan 8, 6:04 p.m. inappropriate
if you like snow, the coming winters will be a treat for you ! The planet continues to cool.
NCDC ( National Climatic Data Center ) updates database for Dec 08 . NCDCs own graphic shows decadal cooling trend .
The RSS ( Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA ) Microwave Sounder Unit ( MSU ) lower troposphere global temperature anomaly data for December 2008 was published today and has fallen slightly. The change from November with a value of 0.216 °C to December 0.174°C is a change of -0.042°C. It is surprising in that many people expected a larger gain in December, not a slight drop.
The oceans have not warmed. The atmosphere has not warmed, we are cooler now than we were in December 1987. Under the IPCC forecast, that should be an absolute impossibility. But here we are. So one can continue to believe the IPCC forecast but that would have to be an act of faith, not an act of scientific observation. It is a religious decision one would have to make on their own because it is not a scientific observation that can be proved based on data. It would be an act of faith based on a model someone built that one would hold to be more accurate than thousands of scientific instruments ( even with the adjustments made to the data in increasingly desperate attempts to validate the models ). It is not like all that heat has hidden itself to suddenly re appear. It is gone ! It will take more energy to heat the planet back up to where it was in 1998 than it took to heat it up from 1987 to 1998. That heat is not going to just suddenly pop out of a cave or something and bingo we are back to 1998 temperature levels. It is gone forever, radiated into space !
Posted Fri, Jan 9, 9:01 a.m. inappropriate
100 inches of snow?? would mean a lot of frozen puppies no doubt, especially if it is followed by a spell of deep freeze.