I got your one to three inches right here.

i'm looking at one inch already in northgate - and traffic has been brought to a dead stop, well off northgate way. good old seattleites, freaking out over an inch of snow, spinning their tires, and abandoning cars. it's a sickness.

confidential to fnarf: love every one of your inches.

How many inches does it take for the Gary Manuel Aveda Institute to close tomorrow? 2 inches? 3 inches?

I ran errands on the Hill after work and it was hailing the whole time. So excellent! Hail is so ridiculous it even makes all the broadway hipsters smile.

*crosses fingers for extra snow*

I have to admit: I became part of the Seattle Stereotype. Kinda.

After spending 45 minutes on 12th between Union and Yesler, I finally just pulled off, parked (in a real parking spot - I'm not THAT much of an idiot) and walked the rest of the way home. It's zoned parking, but I didn't care. I just wanted out of there.

Boy, am I glad I did. The town is one big honk tonight.

I love love LOVE how excited the "meteorologists" get when even the slightest snow falls. The guy on Q13 looks like he's currently taking the male contraceptive that prevents ejaculation. See, Dan, there is a market for it.

Snow in Seattle is exciting. No matter how little. I love how happy people here get when there is a half inch of slush on the ground. Dirty snow men and sledding down Republican St. Articulated buses sliding down John and blocking the street. That is what I want to see tomorrow morning.

I totally just drove up from Seattle to Bellingham and cursed the snow every inch of the way. Now that I'm safely in my apartment, with the heat cranked up, I'm really actually stoked that there's 14 inches of snow outside my window. Funny how that happens...

I waited three hours at the UW for a 44, and finally a driver of a 43 said the 44 was canceled for the night. I fucking hate Metro. That news would have been useful for the hundreds of people waiting to go home. Since the 44 is really the only UW bus that goes to Wallingford (let alone Ballard) I wound up grabbing a bus downtown, and then taking a bus up to Wallingford. There wasn't any snow on the street.

I just had to vent.

Um, you mean NORTH Wallingford, right Elswinger? 'cause the 74 & 31 go along 40th through south W-ford and they were both running yesterday.

But, I agree about the notifications: wish we had those nifty chaser board types displays at stops like they do in PDX.

Erostratus, it's not the "inch of snow" that freaks out Seattle drivers, it's when that quickly compacts into a half inch of solid ice that things get challenging.

i'd like to dump all the 'snow lovers' into AMC Pacers and put them in the middle of a traffic jam on the 405...

if you love snow so much, i suggest you get in your cars and drive 20 miles up into the mountains...you can find snow up there for a good 8-9 months out of the year...

or move to minnesota...

oh, and Gary Manuel/Aveda doesn't uncross their legs for anything under 8 or 9 inches...

44 bus was running as of 9pm last night.

When it comes to odd weather, bus drivers are heroes, but they are also the worst people to ask for the latest information. They're too busy making sure they can get their riders from A to B as is.

I hope some good comes from this.

a) Yes, however rare it is, we need a way to deploy sanding and salting quickly. British Columbia has a system, and they get similar weather than us. Why not Washington state?

b) Maybe, just maybe, people might consider a lifestyle that's not so dependent on a car. Was I thankful for being a bus rider yesterday and today? Absolutely. Despite some bus services being shut down, at least I figured I would be safe, and I could walk home at worst if I could get off the bus earlier -- which is exactly what I had to do. This was coming from the eastside back to Seattle via SR 520, for what it's worth.

Matthew,

Just FYI I saw sanders and plows on Leary Way and on 15th at around 4:30 - 4:45 yesterday, so presumably they had been deployed and were ready to roll as soon as the snow began falling.

Again, it's not that the trucks don't get out there quickly, and aren't being operated as efficiently as possible, it's simply that there aren't enough of them available to cover every major roadway at a moment's notice; and there won't be so long as we only get this kind of weather maybe three or four days a year at most.

Comte: I had walked over to Pacific after someone from Community Transit told us that Stevens Way was going to be closed up to three hours. It doesn't surprise me that that was a lie. It was my fault that I didn't grab the one 31 that went by on Pacific, but I still believed there was a God, and she would bring me a 44.

It seems feet won the prize yesterday for modes of transportation, regardless.

Comte, thanks for the info. I'm guessing it was the hills on the west end of Wallingford into Ballard that contributed more to the dangerous vehicular conditions.