Sorry, I should have been more specific - there is no serious wind (and there isn’t projected to be any) in the metro Seattle area. The news reports I heard this morning on the radio carefully integrated phrases about ‘area’s first hurricane force winds in recorded history’ with ‘Seattle area’ in such a way as to make the reader conclude that Seattle is about to get hit by Katrina.
For the record, the windstorm last year *was * predicted. My boss has a friend at the weather service who sent him an email telling him to prepare. Glad I got the message - I had enough time to stop by the store and pick up firewood, supplies and gas up the car. The news guys probably got notified too, but they did a piss poor job of warning people.
Those of you in low lying areas and landslide zones, please let us know how you’re doing. It sounds pretty dicey.
I just drove from the Boeing Field area to Kent. Other than the Green/Duwamish River looking higher than it did last Friday and a few flooded intersections, it wasn’t too bad. Didn’t get much snow here either, it started snowing about noon Saturday and it turned to rain by 4. Got maybe an inch.
**picunurse ** – weird, I thought that Subaru was the one that had a guy in it, and he got out?
I’m looking out the window here in Redmond, and there’s lots of good stiff wind going on. The lights keep flickering, but I’m not too worried since we have good power backups here. Driving home will be interesting though.
The wind took my breakfast this morning, which I’m still bitter about – I’d put it on my car while I juggled my keys and umbrella, and poof byebye breakfast, hello asphalt and crud-covered remains.
On Saturday, I walked three blocks to the bus stop on Capitol Hill, where I’m staying. Today, I walked all the way to the Seattle Center and soaked through just about every piece of clothing I had. Color me impressed.
My fedora looked about like that on Sunday – after being in the weather about a minute. (We get a little more snow up here than Seattle does, 100 miles south.)
Man, this storm sucks balls! No snow that stuck, cold as hell over the weekend then pouring down rain all damned day and didn’t slow down for a minute. It was way too much fun driving through foot deep puddles in half the intersections, especially this morning when it was pitch dark and the puddles don’t show up until you’re hydroplaning through the middle. Thank goodness for the wonderful person who left a flare burning to draw attention to the really nasty high water across SE 92nd and Division because that one would’ve sucked hard to go through–not to mention what the bikes behind me would’ve had to cope with if they didn’t see the water. What really weirds me out is that it’s like 65 degrees F out, which makes me think I ought to be wearing shorts. The wind was pretty nasty this morning but it’s mellowed out and so far we haven’t lost power which is pretty amazing.
What I’m really concerned about are the rivers–I went past Willamette Falls this weekend before the rain hit and the river was hardly dropping down the falls at all the water was so high. I bet by tomorrow it’s going to be really close to flood stage and I’m sure most of the smaller rivers are going to be in similar shape.
It was snowing pretty hard today. I’m not sure how much has accumulated, but it’s a fair bit! This morning the bus was late, and so a bunch of us were standing out there for a good 20 minutes without a shelter. We were really beginning to look like characters in a cartoon, with little snow drifts on our heads and shoulders!
I’m going to have to shovel out my car tomorrow, because I assume they’ll start the cleanup on that side of the street. One advantage of living on a major street; they pick up the snow first!
This seems like something I should know, growing up in a freaking rain forest, but how does “inches” of rain correlate to the feet of water on the ground? I mean, a rain gauge has a small receptacle for the collection of rain, but how does that translate to what is happening in the area?
I’m sure that terrain, water solubility and drainage all come into play, but why would a few inches of rain create such havoc?
I should probably post this in GQ…
I was talking with some friends this morning when one of them got a phone call from her sister out near the coast. The wind tore the roof off their newly built house and the yard is just about impassable with all the branches and roof bits littering the ground. They’re living in their woodshop out back for the time being. There’s no way in or out of the Aberdeen area and they don’t expect to get the power back on for eight to ten days. They’re expecting to lose four freezers worth of food in that time. But at least they’re safe and well and they know they can make it though this.
Up here near Sea-Tac Airport, we didn’t really get much wind, just lots of rain. Another friend wound up with a couple of inches of water in her basement.
I hope area Dopers are all safe and accounted for.
yanceylebeef, urban development is the reason for most of the flooding around here. Too many paved and built-up areas and clogged sewer grates, etc. Too few containment basins to collect the water from big storms like this.
The reason we have landslides is that much of the land surrounding Admiralty Inlet, Puget Sound and Hood Canal looks like this bluff and lower lying area on Whidbey Island. In some places, it’s been covered with trees and such but it still the same underneath. That’s all sand you see there, deposited in last ice age. In some places, such as here, it’s up to 100 feet deep and nothing holds it together but friction. Below all that sand is a layer of very fine silt or clay. When we get heavy rains, the water can percolate down through the sand pretty quickly but when it hits the clay or silt, it can’t go any farther. As the water builds up, it pushes the sand grains farther and farther apart until they let go of each other and the land gives way and another landslide is born.
It actually isn’t that cold, just snowy. I was out there for 2 hours today, shoveling my car out (the drifts on the road side of the car were nearly to the roof!) because they are collecting all the snow from that side of the street today. I then drove around to the next street over, and managed to back into a spot, but I had to shovel a few feet of snow there to get the nose of my car back far enough; it’s still parked diagonally, but that’s pretty normal around here at the moment! I then shoveled out an entire car-sized spot for my husband’s car, and he’s diagonally parked too! He was supposed to make it home to help me get my car out in the first place, but there was a lot of traffic and he only showed up once I was pretty much done.
I’m sore now, but it wasn’t too cold out and I kind of enjoyed it. I’m kind of proud of how much I shoveled; I know I would never have been able to do that much a year ago. I don’t have the best exercise schedule, but I am part of a once-a-week dragon boat team (indoor in the winter), and I’m sure that that has improved my cardio and my arm muscles a lot. I’ll be stiff at tomorrow’s practise, though…!
Yep, that’s right by my home. I often take that road to get home from work, whenever I feel like taking the “scenic route” and going by the marina. Not yesterday. Not today. I didn’t check today, but they had it all closed off yesterday. I imagine it’s the same today.
At my workplace, the whole back warehouse was just flooded. We trudged on, however; a little chilly, a little grumpy, but we made it. Lots of wet orders, though. The shop vac did nothing. Ruined socks everywhere. My co-worker took her shoes off at one point to show me how pruny her feet were. I called her corpse-feet for the rest of the day, since she looked like she’d been dragged out of a river.
Also, do people just suddenly forget how to drive in the rain here in Ballard? Holy cannoli, people were driving freakier than usual - and if you know Ballard drivers, that’s saying a lot! I almost got sideswiped five or six times just trying to get up the hill on 24th - and I drive a Monte Carlo, it’s not like you can miss seeing (or hearing!) me coming. I know everyone wants to get home and get off the roads, but cripes, slow down! On sunny days they drive 5 miles under the speed limit. On rainy days they race each other out of the sidestreets. Crazy Norwegians.
Drier today, thankfully. Our Lynnwood location lost power yesterday and didn’t get it back until noon-ish today. Some integral part of their power supply was flooded.
I’m sure you guys have seen Centralia all over the news. They might as well grow fishtails now.
The snowfall was great! It made everything look pristine. For me, it isn’t a storm without high winds and whiteouts, this was just a heavy snowfall, 34 cm (a bit over one foot) in a very short time.
For people who are not used to the way snowfalls are measured, one foot= enough snow to bury your car and to make the steps and landing outside your house vanish.
Well, 20 miles of I-5 are under 10-20 feet of water from Chehalis south.
Our basement had water on the floor for the first time since we put in the french drains 10 years ago. I couldn’t really call it flooded, it was just several big puddles. Still, the kitties didn’t like it one little bit. They had to get their toes wet to get to the litter boxes.
You’re not kidding about this weather. It down into the 50’s last night and I had to wear a sweatshirt to get to work. But it’ll be in the low 80’s by lunch, so it’s not too bad.
Papineau. Access to the bridge, so a priority cleaning!
I was kind of annoyed last night, because by the time I went to bed the street cleaners still hadn’t passed. I love watching the plows hurl themselves back and forth up the street at 100 km/h (or so it seems… they must be going at least 40, but considering their size, it looks a lot faster), just piling the snow up into a neat little coke-line down the road, and then the mother of all snow blowers comes and picks it all up. Watching the little guys spin around sign posts and trees is also amusing to me. They’re doing the other side of the road tonight, so maybe I’ll see it then!
I wonder how many truckloads of snow they’ll be filling up in the next couple of days; this stuff is bulky!
I came in to work this morning to find that we’d been given an order in Vernonia, OR which has been having a few weather challenges lately. I had to call them up to let them know they probably ought to call their customer to make sure the house is A) still there and B) has flooring that’s not right out of the Nehalem River!
I am damned glad that it’s going to be dry for a few days!
Good grief. And here I’ve been getting excited about the couple of inches of rain we might get down here on Friday/Saturday. Normally I envy the PNW, but maybe not so much this week.
