Snowpocalypse II - Rainageddon, The Rainpire Strikes Back

Not to be outdone by the snow, rain came to western Washington yesterday. 10 inches in 48 hours in the mountains. 8.5 inches in one town in 24 hours. 3 inches in Seattle. 22 rivers flooded. I-5 south closed for 20 miles and train service between Seattle and Portland cancelled until tomorrow.

Apparently rain has a bit of a jealous streak. Clearly it was not happy snow was getting all the attention. To really make it's mark, it struck snow's favorite location. The picture above is at the most popular ski resort in the Seattle area. And that is a mudslide, 100 yds wide. Just last weekend 2 feet of freshy pow pow nar nar fell here and five days later, a wrecked ski lift.

We're on a hill, and had a huge rain shadow cast by the Olympics for most of the day. No flooding in Loyal Heights.

Here are some crazy links and pictures.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/flatpages/local/readerreportsfloodmap.html

http://www.cliffmass.blogspot.com/

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=avalanche+and+hyak&d=taken-20090107-&ct=0

And we're only half way through!!! Sun and dry weather with unseasonably warm temps coming on Sunday.

Snowpocolypse 2008 (UPDATED MONDAY AFTERNOON)

As the first day of winter approached Seattle, it brought with it 3 pretty interesting snow storms. School has been cancelled for 4 days, and the roads are covered in snow. Perhaps you caught the Seahawks and Jets game on TV and saw the Chicago or New England type seen.

It's not so much the amount of snow that is causing all the mayhem, but more likely because they don't salt or sand any non-arterial roads and the fleet of plows and dusters is lacking. The city is then left with buses careening through barricades dangling over highways, and cars routinely sliding down one of the many hills in the city. Seattle doesn't have the reputation of being very hilly but outside SF, I don't know of a city with more of them.

Of course, no one cares about the negatives of snow days. So everyone is cross country skiing down the streets (it IS Seattle after all). They're pulling dogs and babies to the grocery store, and sledding on any hill they can find. Everyone talks on the street. Neighbors are laughing about digging out cars, and as bars close at night, spontaneous sledding runs and snow ball fights with 50 people are breaking out.

It's not often we get this type of winter blast and EVERYONE is taking advantage.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the Snowpocolypse.

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattyoder/Snowpocolypse2008#

UPDATE: You can see I am not the only one noticing people having fun in the streets:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2008/12/22/whose_streets_1