Snow / Road Reports - Post here

Saturday 14:18:  Clear and sunny here in West Seattle.  Just got back from the pass (more on that later) where there was lots of snow.  

We wound up with 1" - 2"  - covered the roads and it is now freezing - glad I don't have an early morning paper route...

I was a sitting duck on Highway 2 near Snohomish....three bad accidents forced me to stop...and once I did Zippy was stuck in the road. Plows and sanders came to clear enough of the road for me to get going and turn around where I was able to drop Zippy off at the work parking lot (plowing through 4 inches of snow after a running start) and I got a ride home. No way he is making it up the road I live on...

What tires do you have on Zippy right now?

At about 11am I left Snohomish towards lynnhood via mill creek, my studded altimax's were gripping like nobody's business. after encountering a few closed streets and lots of inept drivers, my normally 15 minute drive ended up taking about 70 minutes. I wish people didn't have the 'pin it to win it' mentality in the snow.

Close to 2 inches on parts of Mercer Island, and the streets have frozen and turned to an icy mess.

We went out in the Cooper earlier this evening to see how good it was with its new Blizzaks. It's absolutely amazing. My wife quickly stopped talking about regretting trading her Subaru in after the Mini climbed up a long unplowed icy hill with no wheelspin or slipping.

I knew studless snow tires were good as I ran some on my college Volvo almost 10 years ago, but they've come a long way.

CORNERS wrote: I wonder what Chicago, Denver, New York or Washington DC are like after a few inches of really wet snow.

It is terrible.  My grandparents lived north if Chicago for 65+ years and the weather is why none of the rest of the family lives there!

Thankfully, the Federal Way area roads are bare and wet with slush in places.  We'll see tomorrow morning.  FYI -  for those who park their MINIs outside, Griot's has a really nice snow windshield cover that takes care of the side windows too.  I bought one for my Honda (which is my daily driver; my MINI, contrary to the picture I posted Friday is well taken care of, safe and warmer in my garage).  IMHO, the $35 cost is nothing compared to the inconvenience of scraping snow and ice when you could be just waiting for the car to warm up.   

They probably had bald summer runflat tires...

I did a winter in Washington DC.  Managed to go sideways across a little of the the Potomac bridge nearest the Jefferson Memorial in my Alfa GTV. Not many hills there but a few.  

Good information about the weather for the next few days:

Edited by CINIMIN - January/16/12 at 9:53pm

Oh great. This has the potential of screwing up our epic Jan tune, that has been in the planning for nearly 2 years... 

Brenda - That truly was an unnecessary tragedy - people sometimes act without thinking - or think that they are doing a good thing when they are putting someoneelses life in danger.  To all the police officers, firefighters, emergency response teams, power crews and others who don't get "snow days" but have to be on the line protecting the rest of us from ourselves, THANK YOU.  Sadly, we must now add Park Rangers to the list of those whose lives are at risk in the performance of their duty. 

Brenda:

I had heard about that firefighter but was unaware that it was a redundant call!  That is sad indeed.  There should be some mechanism where other drivers can instantly see whether a scene has already been investigated or not, like some sort of brilliant flagging.

Cliff is cutting back on the snow fall forecast - looks like 2" to 5" - heaviest in the south sound.