Does it snow in Seattle? (vs, safe, vehicles)

[packet]

Originally Posted by seattlerain

As I said in another thread, when any moisture on the road freezes the same thing is going to happen anywhere. I've seen it in many places that deal with much more snow and ice than we do, it is not UNIQUE to Seattle.

The problem in Seattle appears to be a couple things.

1) A complete lack of real plowing. The main streets may be plowed, but little else is. According to the city, they won't even get around to plowing my street until tomorrow. When I lived in CT and upstate NY, the plow would have come by at least 3-4 times by now.

2) Drivers. People stopping in the middle of the road to put chains on and such. In 3" of snow, there is no need for chains, let alone for you to block the entire road to put the things on. When I was in Rochester, NY for 4 years, no one ever used chains, ever. Rochester gets what, 9-10x the snow of Seattle? Granted, plowing was better, but driving home in 4" of snow wasn't uncommon. I got around fine in a VW golf with cheap all season tires too.

[PollyGlott]

Originally Posted by packet

The problem in Seattle appears to be a couple things.
1) A complete lack of real plowing. The main streets may be plowed, but little else is. According to the city, they won't even get around to plowing my street until tomorrow. When I lived in CT and upstate NY, the plow would have come by at least 3-4 times by now.
2) Drivers. People stopping in the middle of the road to put chains on and such. In 3" of snow, there is no need for chains, let alone for you to block the entire road to put the things on. When I was in Rochester, NY for 4 years, no one ever used chains, ever. Rochester gets what, 9-10x the snow of Seattle? Granted, plowing was better, but driving home in 4" of snow wasn't uncommon. I got around fine in a VW golf with cheap all season tires too.

Well, but the contrast you point out is exactly why Seattle has the problem! Conn. and upstate NY, indeed the whole Northeast, are USED TO getting lots of snow, and therefore are PREPARED for it (materials, vehicles, personnel, protocols, money allocation...) whereas the PNW, which gets relatively little if any snow, just doesn't have that level of preparedness/resources. Which, obviously, is a bummer when the snow actually hits...

[seattlenextyear]

Mostly #2. The worst thing about the snow here is dealing with other drivers.

[packet]

Originally Posted by PollyGlott

Well, but the contrast you point out is exactly why Seattle has the problem! Conn. and upstate NY, indeed the whole Northeast, are USED TO getting lots of snow, and therefore are PREPARED for it (materials, vehicles, personnel, protocols, money allocation...) whereas the PNW, which gets relatively little if any snow, just doesn't have that level of preparedness/resources. Which, obviously, is a bummer when the snow actually hits...

Yes and no. Near the ocean in CT gets around 25" of snow a year, Seattle gets what, 12"? Either way, the city certainly is not prepared for any snow and the city breaks down when it hits. That just makes me glad that I'm out of town for the next couple weeks.

[MaikeerinWA]

Well, yes and no. I believe that figure is close to the historical average, but it's somewhat misleading, because of the range. Seattle often gets little more than a trace during an entire year. And then sometimes it gets a couple of feet in a single day.

Originally Posted by packet

Seattle gets what, 12"?

[packet]

Originally Posted by MichaelinWA

Well, yes and no. I believe that figure is close to the historical average, but it's somewhat misleading, because of the range. Seattle often gets little more than a trace during an entire year. And then sometimes it gets a couple of feet in a single day.

fair enough, but CT is the same way. I remember quite a few storms that would drop 2ft in a day growing up. Granted there was also that time in college that Buffalo, NY got 6 feet of snow in a single storm.

[Redline]

Drivers aside, Seattle doesn't have the equipment or manpower to deal with "snowstorms" around here (a Seattle snowstorm being 2" or more). They don't use salt, just sand and the de-icer and neither of them work that well or they will run out of one or the other or both. Also the very few plows they use have plastic edges so while they may get rid of that layer of snow, they leave behind a compacted layer which is mainly ice or turns into ice overnight.

Couple all this with the fact that Seattle has a million hills. You can say your city got dumped with 6 feet of snow but if the whole city is flat it's not too big of a deal. Also, there are so many drivers around here because public transportation is so limited that you really need a car unless your life is contained within a 10 block radius.

When I was in Chicago EVERYTHING would be salted before the snow fell; even the tops of the buildings would be salted! Bad for cars? Yeah... if you don't wash them. You would see 3 snow plows driving side by side along the highways clearing them out 24/7 as long as the snow was falling, in Seattle you will be lucky to see ONE snow plow on the highway.

You would think Nichols would learn something from the winterstorm of 2008.

[Ira500]

You would think Nichols would learn something from the winterstorm of 2008.

Nickels probably did learn something from the winter of 2008. But he didn't get the chance to show if he learned anything, since he didn't get re-elected. McGinn the new mayor isn't looking real sharp, but they are using salt now.

[LordBalfor]

The hills, drivers unused to driving in snow, and insufficient equipment are ALL things that make our infrequent snows a nightmare in Seattle - but, it seems to me an even bigger issus is the NATURE of our snows.

Seattle snow ALMOST ALWAYS occur when cold air from either the east or the north collides with warmer moister air coming in from either the west or the or the south. The end result is that it usually either BEGINS with rain (as the cold air comes in) or ENDS with rain as the warmer air scours the cold air already in place. It rarely just snows when it's already cold to begin with (and going to remain cold). In other words, we tend to get our snows as the weather is making either a transition from warm to cold or cold to warm. This means that all too often it's NOT just snow but rather (at some point) either a transition from rain to snow or from snow to rain - BOTH of which can result in very icy roads as the rain freezes (either as the weather turns colder or as the rain hits already frozen roads).What this means is that it's not usually just snow, but snow either OVER ice or snow TURNING to ice.

Ken

[SaltyDawg]

Of reading about how bad the drivers here are in the snow - particularly coming from mid-Westerners.

In the mid-West (and East Coast to a lesser extent), the ground is already COLD when snow hits, meaning that it can be plowed, swept, blown, pushed or any other number of verbs away, leaving cold, dry pavement.

Here, we have warm, wet ground that suddenly freezes, and then gets wet snow on top of it which also freezes. Add to that the ridiculously hilly topogragphy (which you kind of forget about until the ice forms), and you have a nearly impossible landscape for wheeled vehicles.

I'd like to invite the genius drivers to take their 'expertise' in a 4wd car and try to make it up Denny, or Dravus, or QA ave, or even 65th in these short-lived conditions. I'd enjoy watching them spin out and end up on YouTube.

Get over yourselves, cold-climate veterans. Your experience, while having some value, does not translate to some sort of driving excellence here when the S&*^ hits the fan.