Thundersnow!!

Thunder is SO rare here, and so is snow, so when we had the two together last night, the headlines all over the news in the morning read 'THUNDERSNOW'... oh my, what a story! Good thing I'm from the midwest so I know how to recognize these immediately.

The city has been shut down. Even in the midwest, this would have been one heckuva storm. We had something like 6 inches, and most of it stuck because it's FREEZING outside (in the 20s). People were sledding down neighborhood streets and snowboarding down closed freeway ramps. Because nobody here knows how to drive in snow, the city only has two snowplows, and it's REALLY HILLY, lots of streets simply get closed and everybody stays at home when it snows. That means... SNOW DAY!!! oh, what glory it is.

You can find some GREAT photos on the Seattle PI website:A jacknived bus downtown. The buses were on snow routes only (which means no hills) but still were slip-sliding all over the place. Those poor bus drivers! Plus nobody wanted to drive so the buses were very full.

A snowboarder goes down a city street in West Seattle. What fun! It would be hard to fall though.

I'm used to snow and cold but one thing I'm not used to is the concept of using chains on your tires. When it snows out here it's serious business and everyone goes for their chains (chains are required in the mountain passes). The busses all had chains and lots of cars did too. They make this awful grinding sound on the roads but they sure do help with traction!

Tomorrow I will be heading in to work, on foot, so I can get a few things done before I leave for the holiday. Microsoft is shut down, schools are already cancelled, and it will be a ghost town at work tomorrow. Time to party!