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Sleepless Night

The weather in the beautiful Pacific Northwest has been somewhat harsh the past few weeks.  It's been snowing and freezing more so than in the nine years I've been here.  Yesterday (January 6), we had a lot of snow.  If it wasn't for the fact that I had a morning meeting with my manager, I wouldn't have attempted to come in.

It took me just under and hour to get in, going about 15-30 miles an hour the whole way.  It snowed heavily (for this area) throughout the morning and I decided to get home before dark.  Later in the afternoon and evening, the tempature warmed up somewhat and the snow and ice turned to slush.  Going to bed around 11pm, the wind had picked up and I heard several branches come down.  I have many tall (>75ft) evergreen trees on the property and while none have come down, each year several smaller trees crash down.  Luckily, none have hit the house.  With the wind and the weight of the snow and rain, I was worried and went outside to investigate.  Finding nothing, I came back in, but had the window cracked open to listen.  All throughout the night, branches cracked and came down, sometimes loudly.

At 3am, a sound woke me up and looking out the window, the sky flashed twice from exploding power transformers.  I counted the seconds until I heard the sound and it was over 10 miles away!  At 4am, our power went off.

When I left this morning at 9:30am, a pretty large evergreen branch covered the front driveway.  Ice covered everything.  Driving out was dangerous again due to the slush freezing.  Many trees had come down over the roads and had been sawed off already.  I'm worried about more branches and trees coming down on my lot.  At best, it'll be a lot of clean up this weekend.

4 Comments

  • ??? Sounds like a pretty typical winter in Mass...

  • I'm sure it is typical for many places. Downed trees are common here in the PacNW. Since this is the first snow and ice storm to hit since I've lived in my own home, the experience is a lot more personal! Thanks for the feedback.

  • Blame it on me.



    Since I've moved here, we've had weird weather. Longest summer. Hottest day. Wettest day. And now cold and snow.

  • This reminded me of the two years we spent in Pennsylvania. While the weather was warmer than our home state of Minnesota (I remember it being 50 degrees in March one year), it also made for ugly ice storm conditions. Both years we lived through several ice storms which were all ugly and miserable. Plus, no one seems to be prepared to deal with either ice or snow on the east coast, so even a little bit of ice or snow made it impossible to get anywhere for days. My husband worked 5 minutes from home, but in this weather it would take him 1 hour or more to get to work. I took the train to Manhattan most days, but on those days it was not really worth the trouble, as by the time I got into NYC, it was practically time to turn around and come home.



    Give me snowy Minnesota any time! It is easier to deal with snow than ice (just push it aside), and people are a little bit better prepared to drive in it! (Then again, I work from home these days, so what do I care?)

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