Oregonians, prepare! [just in case they get it right]

Ivan Seeking

Okay this is pretend Tsu where she asks me...I don't think I can even type the words...for permission.

Okay I'll play along.
Sure dear, would you like me to load the car?

Tsu is heading to Hawaii soon!!! She really hates it there.

Tsu

That would be nice. Give me about 2 seconds to pack a bag . . there, I'm ready. Let's go! Let me know how much snow you get! Oh, yeah! Sorry! You'll have to chop your own wood and shovel the snow off the roof yourself this year, dear. Ohhhh BOY!! I'm gonna be snorkeling and yes, MAYBE even surfing again in a few weeks. At least a little parasailing is in order, I think...

matthyaouw

Oh how I miss snow. I was informed this winter would be bitterly cold. We've had a few frosts, and somewhere in the region of 8 snowflakes. I miss last year, where I went into a field with some friends, and built 2 snowmen as tall as me. While we were doing it, the snow came in so thick we couldn't see any edge of the field. Could have been interesting finding our way back if it kept up & covered our footprints.
We also never get ice storms in the UK. I want to experience one of those just once.

kawikdx225

WOW, here in New England we occasionally wake up to snowfalls greater than 12 inches and still make it to work on time! That's just not fair!

And you guys want to move to Canada?

matthyaouw

6 inches? 12? Here in regular England, London ground to a halt after what can have been no more than 4 inches, maybe less. People were stuck in cars over night on the M25. Makes me kind of glad I live in something of a quiet backwater compared to London. No such problems up here, just many snowmen

Kerrie

The pacific nw isn't prepared for snow that interferes with daily life...we don't salt the roads, we don't have snow plows, etc. we had one heck of an ice storm this time last year and without the right equipment, only the brave were willing to drive in the ice covered roads.

Ivan Seeking

Canadians are allowed to go to Hawaii. SW BC is not too different from our weather here. N. Manitoba would be another story entirely.

Moonbear

Up to 6 inches of snow, there's just no excuse. Any halfway decent all-weather tire will get you through it (if you get a lot of rain, you would have those anyway). I haven't had any problem driving through 6 inches of snow. More than that, and my car isn't far enough off the ground. Driving in snow is actually pretty easy; I think maybe even easier than in rain, because everyone has to slow down and after a few cars have gone through, you've got pre-made tracks in the road that it's really hard to drift out of (hard to turn out of too if you take an exit nobody else has taken yet).

Ice is an entirely different story. Cincinnati gets a lot more ice than snow because it's just warm enough here that the first snow to hit the ground melts, forms a layer of ice, then snow over it so you can't see it's there. That's probably what you'd wind up with in OR too if you usually have warmer winters and a lot of rain. I can deal with patches of ice, you just have to drive carefully, leave lots of room for other cars, and be prepared to downshift or throw the car into neutral until you coast over it and get traction again...some salt, sand or kitty litter in the trunk will get you out of any slippery spots if you get stuck. But when you get a real ice storm, the best solution is to just stay home and wait for it to melt. I had to drive after an ice storm once. Fortunately, I was out on a farm, so no other cars to hit (had experiments running that couldn't wait a day, and animals that needed to be fed...no fun chipping blocks of ice out of water buckets on those days either). Anyway, I wasn't driving more than 5 mph, started braking as soon as I got through the gates of the farm, and the car "skated" the rest of the way across to the other side, just barely stopping about 6 inches from the fence on the other side (I was sure the fence would be doing the stopping for me). Then I got out and tried to walk into the barn. Each barn sat up on a slight incline from the parking area around it so they would stay dry. Ended up pulling myself hand over hand along the fence to get in, because I could not walk, crawl, or otherwise propel myself toward the barn without sliding right back down toward the parking area. I was glad nobody else was around to watch. Hooves work much better than feet in boots when it comes to walking on ice. The goats had no problem at all taking me for a walk as I tried to grab their collars and bring them inside. At least I wasn't falling over as long as I was hanging onto them.

Ivan Seeking

Ice is the problem here. We almost always go through ice, either before or after the snow. I have seen it go from ice to snow, back to ice, back to snow etc. We often start with rain that transitions through ice to snow. Also, we often get a warm rain falling through very cold air below. It freezes on its way down and the entire world's an ice rink until the cold air trapped in the valley is scoured out. So in this part of Oregon at least, when we talk about snow, we almost always include lots of ice, power outages, and impassible roads. The biggest danger of all is black ice. When the temps however just above freezing, it is easy to be fooled on a wet, shady curve, and away you go!

We had a place up near Sandy, just out of Portland, which is close enough to the Columbia Gorge to get the terrible ice storms that funnel down from Idaho. One year we watched over one inch of ice accumulate on anything facing the bitterly cold and wet east wind, in about one hour. Within a few more hour, trees are giving way and the power goes out. With the combination of a few inches of snow over and inch of ice, even studded tires or chains may be of little to no use. When you live in the hills this really gets to be a problem.

Janus

The problem is that around here it snows so infrequently that driving in snow is a rare occasion. (Rain we get lots of, nobody here thinks anything about driving in the rain.)

In fact, it is often remarked that people around here forget how to drive in the snow in between snowstorms. I have to disagree with this statement. The real problem is that people around here forget that they never knew how to drive in the snow in the first place!

Thus we get a bunch of fools driving around causing problems. Driving in the snow doesn't bother me as much as the fact that there are other people out there driving in the snow.

Usually, if the snow hangs around for more than a day, driving conditions get better. By then all the idiots who thought they could drive in the snow have either abandoned their cars on the side of the road, or barely made it home and are now too afraid to go back out until the snow melts.

To give you an idea of what kind of drivers I'm talking about, here's a little story:

Several years ago we got hit with a snow storm here in Portland. After a day or so the roads had cleared up to the point that we only had a thin layer of slush on some of the side streets. I was dropping my daughter off at school when I saw somebody having trouble. He was trying to make a right turn from one side street to another, but there was a small incline and he couldn't get up it. Some people got out and helped push him up onto the street he was trying to turn onto. Once on the street (which was level and had maybe 1/2 inch of slush on it)do you know what he proceeded to do? He put the accelerator to the floor, rear tires spinning like crazy as he fish-tailed down the street! His thought processes obviously went like this, "Hmmm, the road's slippery, so I'd better give it a lot of gas so that I'll be sure to go forward."

Moonbear

We have that problem here in Cincinnati too. Dingbats who haven't a clue how to drive in snow. I've watched plenty in my neighborhood who seem to think they can still drive the 25 mph speed limit with 4 inches of snow on the road (we're one of the last streets to get cleared, if a plow comes through here at all...it's too narrow when people are parked on the streets, and they never think to park their cars in the driveway, which would have the bonus effect of leaving little to shovel in the driveway, nor does the city think to just tow them out of the way). I've watched them do 180s in the middle of the road, pull out of the spin, then hit the gas full throttle again and spin their tires before fish-tailing back down the road when I'm not having any problems at all. I just keep an eye out well ahead of intersections and give them room to spin a bit before making their turns. If I owned corner property around here, I'd make a very big snowbank in front of the house!

I usually opt to just stay home the first storm of the year (of course, this year I was out of the state, which is even better). By the second storm, all those people who can't drive are safely off the roads waiting for their cars to come out of the body shops. The worst are the SUV drivers. They don't seem to have the sense to realize that 4WD still doesn't help if all four wheels are on ice, or that if they took longer than a car to stop before, they will take a LOT longer to stop on a slick road. I just laugh as I pass them stuck in snowbanks while I plod along in my dinky Focus.

Ivan Seeking

Well, are all of you Oregonians managing to dig out? Our 50" of snow turned to rain that never arrived.

Still, calling for snow showers from Sat on... I love the snow.

tumor

We here in some parts of Canada (Saskatchewan,Manitoba,Alberta) had -51 C yesterday !

Ivan Seeking

We've been at, near, or below freezing for days. Now its raining and freezing as the water hits the ground. Classic Oregon! Right now, chains are required to drive in Portland on the highways, and the last that I heard, a sanding truck was stuck. City officials are asking everyone to stay home for the next 24 hours. On a positive note, the annual boat show is still going on today! We also have the national ice skating championship here today.

I have been sitting here since 6:00AM watching the weather radar. I started on a project for the state 8 years ago - an experimental de-icing system for a major bridge up in the Columbia Gorge - and right now I am waiting for the system to start automatically for the first time ever!!! Boy, this has been a long time in coming. We're not sure if the moisture sensors will work properly in the snow and ice, and since snow is just now falling on site, I'm chomping at the bit to force the system to run, but I would really like to see it go on in full auto. One cool thing is that a local weatherman is also on site doing live reports right next to the bridge. So between the internet road cams, weather radar, and the live TV coverage, its almost like being there. This is so cool.

My finger is twitching over the H2O detected = true bit...

The locals are going to be quite surprised when the bridge starts to steam like a tea kettle!.

Moonbear

I just got a position announcement for a job at Oregon State...might be worth applying just for the drive up to Portland to see that!

Is the weather in Corvallis much different from that in Portland? I'm not sure I'm right for the position they have open, but am going to inquire about it anyway (the announcement specifies someone using bioinformatics, which I don't currently do, but given the rest of the requirements, unless they had someone specific in mind when writing the announcement, I'm not sure if they will find anyone who fits ALL their qualifications, so I figure it's worth an inquiry to find out which of the qualifications are most important to them).

If I move to Oregon, do I automatically get upgraded to mentor status?

Evo

Let us know if it works!

Moonbear, yes, I think moving to Oregon automatically makes you a mentor!!!

tumor

Ivan Seeking? did not you consider hiring a guy or two with shovels and a truck full of roadsalt instead ? to deice that bridge ?