* never mind *

After two failed storms, the third one that began early Saturday morning and continues as I write (Sunday 6PM) is the charm.  This now rivals 1968 as my biggest snowstorm here - two monsters (by local standards) in my fifty-one years in Portland.  Drop in on the PDXsnow site for pretty pictures!  Foot-tall drifts were sealed overnight in 1/8" of ice, but the air cooled again and we're back into snow for the forseeable future - a white Christmas like I've never seen.  We have had snowfall, and perhaps even an inch or two (1990 comes to mind), but even 1968 failed to produce thanks to a warm rain on Christmas Eve and day.  For me, this really is without precedent!
The sad part is that we had high hopes of Christmas in Anacortes this year - with each forecast showing cooler weather, it's pretty much an impossible 250-mile drive.  Even Amtrak chose not to head north last night, and I'm not sure they felt any better about it today.  Therefore, I'm off all week, "stuck" at home, with snow to play in and snowshoes/skis to play with.  My wife can use the snowshoes, I'll just shuffle along beside her.  O what fun!

slow learner!

You'd think that 40 years of heartache was enough, but no - Portland again missed out on a fine snowstorm. Oh it snowed well enough, but with a 30mph south wind it was 34° and wet semi-snow most of the afternoon. We may wake up to 2" on the ground in the morning.. but that isn't good enough. I'd put money on 1/2 inch of ice for Sunday instead of the currently-expected snowstorm. I'm tired of being denied my second lifetime-best snow season!

party like it's .. 1968?

I've lived in Portland my whole life, and only one year stands out as truly wintry in a snow sense: 1968. A friend went to Hawaii for the holidays & I promised to keep a journal. It went sorta like this:

• 12/19 snow, which stuck around a few days
  
• 12/24-25 warm rain = muddy brown Christmas
  
• 12/26 Huge snowstorm w/drifts
  
• 12/30 Another one atop the first pile!  Icicles on the roof as tall as me!

It was amazing.  Now it's 2008 and I've never seen anything quite like it. We had snow this past weekend, a mere inch or three, but it hasn't left. We may get six inches tomorrow, or two, or icy rain, or ??? And another snowstorm is expected Sunday. Could it be a repeat, at last? Doesn't take much to get this old kid excited.. please visit for shots of the first event, and perhaps other events soon!

On another topic, we held a nice brunch at our home this past weekend. Friends, neighbors, co-workers and the like dropped by and brought food - a fun day!

holiday update

We've put up the tree early, so we can celebrate locally before heading north for Christmas. Warm temps means we could go high and catch a tree at 4000 feet, where the noble and subalpine firs live - nice trees for the $5 Forest Service permit! Weather forecasts are suggesting cold weather on the way; we'll see how that impacts the season. We've had little enough rain, it would be odd if we went straight to snow (unlikely at 50' elevations, but not unknown). Hope everyone reading this has a fine December holiday season!