What's the weather like in your neck of the woods?

[Burnham]

It is an interesting thing, the high variability. As I have noted, about 60 inches annually here at my house.

Portland, about 1500 feet lower in elevation and less than 50 miles west of here, gets about 40 inches. Located on the south to north flowing Willamette River.

The Clackamas River valley at similar elevation to here and just 5 to 20 miles south of us gets about 80 inches. Lots of much higher elevation peaks around it, and it is oriented mostly south to north.

The Bull Run River valley, about 1000-2000 feet higher than here and 10 miles NE of here, gets about 120 inches. Also surrounded by much higher peaks and is oriented east to west.

According to people who study such things, the proximity to higher ground and especially the orientation makes a big difference. East-west drainages capture more of the wet weather off the ocean for longer than the north-south drainages. The mountains also hold up the cloud's movements, and more rain falls in such an area.

 

[flushcut]

I’m getting tired of every goddamned snow storm being a major event. School is closed for 3-6” WTF and the storm is supposed to wrap up at 10pm, we aren’t even going to see two inches until 2pm. Maybe I’m just getting old and the world is turning into a bunch of pussies around me. Get off of my lawn!

 

[Dave Shepard]

My great-grandfather had school busses in the '50's. He kept shovels on the bus so the big kids could shovel the snow drifts. I think calling off school for a dusting is bs. You have to make it up later anyway.

 

[flushcut]

Our schools have X amount of days set aside for weather, but this is silly.

 

[pigwot]

About 1 1/2" here last night.

When we'd head to Michigan in the summers to run the day camp we could always annoy the kids there by telling them we had off school for two days because we got 6 inches of snow. They were all like, "We get an hour delay only if we get two or three feet or more!!".

 

[Dave Shepard]

Woke up to 5" of snow capped by 1/2" an inch of ice. I cleared the VW off enough to see, put it in reverse, and it just walked right out without even touching the throttle. Amazing car. Now, it's just straight up raining.

 

[flushcut]

Temp is dropping wind is blowing.

 

[Burnham]

Plenty of rain and mid 40's. Snow is melting off fast, and is a slushy mess.

 

[flushcut]

40 sounds magical even if it’s raining.

 

[treebilly]

Snow then rain yesterday. Then rain all night changing back over to snow. Temps dropped fast. Supposed to be 14F at sunrise and a high of 21F. Mixed with the winds it’s gonna be brutal tomorrow. Already given a delayed start for work

 

[Burnham]

Sounds like a recipe for icy mess.

 

[Nutball]

Was very windy here. I was watching the trees to see if they would blow over during the night. The neighbor's did.

 

[Burnham]

Got a good deal of rain overnight and today. Snow on the ground is super saturated, but most has melted off. It's 43 degrees F. but feels much colder.

 

[lxskllr]

Thought I'd see more uprooted trees than I did. High winds after lots of rain. Only one true uproot, but I saw a few tops ripped off of trees.

 

[Dave Shepard]

We have a multi-layered mess on top of solid ice.

 

[Burnham]

Nasty.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Amazingly, the VW just keeps plowing through it. On all-season tires, no less!

 

[Burnham]

Front wheel drive, and a competent driver, can make it around pretty well in most conditions.

The only thing that ever stopped our old VW Rabbit (1976) or Mazda 323 (1988 ) was if the snow was deep enough that the flat underside of the unibody construction would plane up on top of the snow and lift the wheels out of decently weighted contact with the road surface...took about a foot unless it was really light dry stuff which didn't hold the car up, and which we usually don't get here on the west side of the Cascades.

The Subaru Forester (2010) is amazing...just about unstoppable, with the symmetrical AWD.

 

[lxskllr]

When I lived in the "city", we once got a ton of snow. I spent a couple hours(maybe. seemed like forever. Too long ago for an accurate time) digging my F100 1wheel drive turd out of it's spot. Girlfriend's Taurus drove right out. Barely any digging :^/

 

[Nutball]

I think electric and hybrid cars should have an independent motor on each wheel. That would allow for excellent control on ice, at least as much as you can have on ice. I think it would work better than using the brakes for traction control.

 

[Dave Shepard]

It's called torque vectoring. Most of your $2,000,000+ hyper cars have it.

 

[Nutball]

Years ago I thought of an electromagnetic suspension that would react in real time to the road using a road surface reading from ahead. I thnk they are using that now too.

 

[Dave Shepard]

China has a car that will jump over large potholes.

 

[flushcut]

Y’all remember that car from Yugoslavia that fell apart when it hit a pothole?

 

[stikine]

Y’all remember that car from Yugoslavia that fell apart when it hit a pothole?

Probably a collectors item now. 🙂