PNW snow and freeizing rain.

Well I've lived in places where I had to dig to find the mailbox at the end of the drive way. My parents house would have 3 feet of snow just about every year. Some years the drift was high enough that you could ALMOST enter and exit out of the second floor window.

The snow in PNW is different than what I'm used to. and the strong wind we have had at my house, the pile of snow developed several layers of crust intersparsed with fluffy snow, wet snow, dry pellet (sort of like styrofoam pellet) like snow.

Then we had freezing rain. :confused: :eek: What in the world is that?? The wind was blowing so hard that the freezing rain was pelting the back of our house. Last night, tried to let our dogs out to do their stuff before going to bed. And the sliding glass door was FROZEN SHUT. YES IT WAS FROZEN SHUT from the freezing rain.

And the ground... I'm can almost see the concrete ground but my sole of my boots were no where near the concrete. My boots were separated from the concrete by wet thick ice about 2 inches thick. :eek: :eek:

I've learned a few things about this strange weather phenomenon.

BTW, at the height of the snow storm, I was shoveling the snow in 17F and 20MPH wind. I was dressed head to toe in my snow suit, neoprene boots... My 2nd generation Norwegian neighbor said I looked like a honest to goodness good Norwegian.

My neighbor is another fun story. Is he really a Norwegian? I think so, I asked him about his Bunad. His father's Bunad is in safe keeping with his nephew. And yes he does speak bokmal Norwegian. I think that is correct... I'm digressing.

Ha det (I think that is what I have to say). :confused::confused:

BTW, LPH, how are you going to spend your million Kroner from the Norwegian oil?

lol… almost every year that I lived in Rochester, NY there would be at least one ice storm…. yeah, it coats everything. It would down trees and power lines out there. One happened when we were thankfully gone for break, but they invited all the workers and their families to come and stay in the student union building, since the campus had it's own backup generators and everyone else was without power - and it was bitterly, bitterly cold.

We did not get as hammered up here in WA as you guys did. In my neighborhood we got about 2 inches of snow last night, which is rapidly dwindling to nothing as we speak. Probably the most convenient kind of snow possible… fell on Saturday evening and won't be around on Monday. Just enough time to take some pretty pictures, for the kiddies to get out their sleds and for snowmen to be built, but didn't really affect much else.

Heh, by chance I opened this thread. It did say snow and freezing rain, which sounded familiar...

I think actually the US has more of this rain and ice business than we do. We have snow, which then gets rained on and subsequently turns icy, but not the ice storms I've read about.

If he speaks Norwegian he probaly is Norwegian, can't imagine why anyone else would bother. I'm going to spend my million kroner the way I have been doing so far - subsidized child care, free schooling, long maternity leaves...

You've all seen this, right?

http://deadspin.com/runner-eats-it-i...nin-1519107024

The follow-up interview is pretty cool, too.

Smilingcat, have you relocated?
Freezing rain is no joke because of the way it is heavy and coats EVERYTHING. It's notorious for bringing down trees and power lines, and trees onto powerlines. We don't get a lot of it but one year we had a November storm that put almost the whole city out for a few days.

We just had an ice storm here last week. It was minor in my immediate area, but the far north and west suburbs had lots of problems, since the ice there was thick and heavy enough to bring down trees and power lines. I've planned a nice bike ride up in that area, but I think will be a while before I can try it out.

Yes we relocated to beautiful Oregon where things are green everywhere. Thin includes the roof and wooden sides of the house. It's a beautiful color of green and seems to spread each year. Even the concrete walkway turns green. How cool is that??

I like green, emerald green. Needless to say, we get ton of rain. It's beautiful. No need for an umbrella. Just stand there and soak all that beauty in :D :D

Well I've scattered pea gravel everywhere we walk on our property. I think salt is a big no no. When the snow and ice melts, we'll just sweep up the pea gravel back into its pile.

BTW, did you know that Prius can move like a crab, SIDEWAYS. Never seen it do that before!! Now if I can do that for parallel parking, it'll be cats meow!!

Rather enjoying Icelandia. Portlandia covered in ice.

I grew up in places like Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine and I was oblivious to the idea of 'freezing rain'. When we first moved to NC, I kept asking "isn't freezing rain just snow (or sleet)? Why don't they call it snow or sleet?". Then I was driving to work one day and it was 29F and pouring rain. How is that possible? Does NC defy the laws of physics? That rain was freezing to my car as I was driving... By the time I got to work (13 miles from home), I couldn't get out of my car as the doors were frozen shut!! That, ladies and gentleman, is freezing rain. It SUCKS.

Now that I live in the PNW - I've had to change my definition of 'bad weather'. People laugh that 4 inches of snow will stop us in our tracks for days. It started to snow here on Thursday. Today (Monday), people are still calling in to work...unable to get out of their neighborhoods. 4 inches of snow with 4 days of temps near freezing or below, with very few plows and with hills everywhere and an awful lot of cars with crappy bald tires and people who don't know how to drive in snow is a recipe for disaster. Personally, I stay off the roads if I can and I'm very comfortable driving in snow (and we own a Subaru).

A friend of mine posted a video of a guy ice skating down the street (literally - on hockey skates!). Crazy!

I know freezing rain. I've lived through it, just barely missed that storm that put what a million people out of power for a week in the dead of winter six-seven years ago? had many others I didn't miss.

GLC, I'm surprised you never had it in MI, we get plenty in OH.

But the video was still funny, geez ... especially knowing the runner wasn't really hurt and had a sense of humor about it ...

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Originally Posted by lph

If he speaks Norwegian he probaly is Norwegian, can't imagine why anyone else would bother.

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Uff da!! OK, that's all I know. My dad is 1/4 Norwegian (1/2 Swede, 1/4 Dane), mom was raised by predominately Norske parents, but was adopted and knows that she is at least 1/2 Scot and 1/2 mystery…I generally pretend that the mystery is Scandinavian, since I LOOK Scandinavian.

My BFF was an exchange student for a year in Trondheim (which is where my roots are, incidentally) and is fluent. Her kids have a pretty good understanding of Norwegian, since she has spoken Norwegian to them since they were infants. It's pretty cool.

We have more of this pox headed our way. Predicted to have somewhere in between 1/4" ice and 6" snow. That is enough to shut us down for quite a while, if it happens. Bah Humbug. I enjoyed this mess when I didn't have to go anywhere. Now that I do have to go somewhere - ugh!

Toronto had their worst ice storm in over 25 years, around this past Christmas : I wondered if my whole family would get together for Christmas Eve. There were accidents, etc. downed trees and hydro lines a few days before Christmas.

Um this past weekend it was -24 degrees C, with wind chill @-31 degrees C. But tomorrow it will be softer at -12 degrees C or warmer. :) I've lost count the number of snow dumps, melts, evaporation, another snow dump, deep freeze..

I just hope we don't another river flood like last spring which grabbed international news.

I remember freezing rain here when I was a kid. But,it does seem we have it more often now. It scares the hell out of me, but I still don't get why sometimes the rain turns to ice and other times it's light snow when the temperature is hovering around freezing. I guess it's humidity, but I'll take snow any day!
This is the only place I've lived that's had snow, so no comparison. However, when I used to travel to northern AZ from Tempe, I noticed the snow there was completely different. All powder. I couldn't teach my kids how to make a snowman until we moved here.

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Originally Posted by Crankin

I remember freezing rain here when I was a kid. But,it does seem we have it more often now. It scares the hell out of me, but I still don't get why sometimes the rain turns to ice and other times it's light snow when the temperature is hovering around freezing. I guess it's humidity, but I'll take snow any day!

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According to our weather talking heads, it has to do with the upper level temperatures (with a cold layer at the ground). If it's cold all the way up, we get snow. If there's a warm layer above that's thin, we get sleet. If there's a thick warm layer, we get freezing rain. The are now saying we are in for the worst storm since 2002. I was in law school in the time, and we had no power for the entirety of exam week. Really, really hoping that doesn't happen again!

Yup, there's a basic difference between rain and snow, in that snow forms from water vapour in air that is cold and dry enough to cause crystal growth. There's lots of air in snow. Snow can melt to rain, but once a raindrop is formed it can't turn into snow. It can freeze to hail on the way down, but the transition is "hard". So once they're formed raindrops will often keep falling in quite cold air, and not freeze until they hit the cold ground.

Freezing rain is absolutely the worst-- in the early 2000s we had a storm that caused massive power outages. I was out for 7.5 days (you remember these things!). Then there was one a few years later when I had no power for just a day, but it took me 4 days to clear enough ice off the car to get into it. Bad news. The freezing rain we got a week and a half ago took down the power about 5 min after the end of "Sherlock" (good timing) and it was back by the time my feline alarm clock went off in the morning.

I'd far rather deal with 10" snow than .5" freezing rain...

Oak - I lived in Michigan in the 70's....back then, it was pretty much always cold enough for snow! Actually, it was pre-driving years too...so it's possible we did have freezing rain but I was too young to care/notice?

I also left Wisconsin off my list of northern residences. No freezing rain there (as far I as I remember).

And yes, it comes from the warm air mass up above the cold air mass near the ground. It happened a lot in NC. It happens here every once in awhile but typically, it's not even cold enough for things to freeze here (unless the skies are clear).

Today we are back to temps near 40 and an awful lot of slush everywhere!

We're digging out here in my part of Oregon. Even with the last couple of days of rain it hasn't all melted. I live on the side of a mountain and we got over 2 feet of snow before it was coated with the freezing rain. My hill to my house is a bit over 2 miles with an average grade of 12%. It's a gravel road and not maintained by the county so it's all up to us. The crack of the branches as they froze and became too heavy to stay on the trees is quite eerie in the otherwise silent world up here.