"On Snow In Seattle"
From Metro Blogging Seattle
Five things you can count on:
1. LIVE COVERAGE from the TOP OF QUEEN ANNE! (Doesn't matter that High Point in West Seattle is a couple hundred feet higher, it's QUEEN ANNE, and the TV god hath decreed that all LIVE OMIGAWD IT MIGHT SNOW shots in Seattle must be taken from the TOP OF QUEEN ANNE!)
2. LIVE COVERAGE from SNOQUALMIE PASS!!!! (Made better his year by the rockslides.)
3. All broadcasters will wear slick, stylish custom KING/KIRO/KOMO/Q13 all-weather -70F coats from Eddie Bauer or REI.
4. No sudden run on bread and milk at the stores. Seattleites have never done that, unlike other places in this country. It's either because Seattleites buy their soy milk from their organic producer and their bread from an artisan baker, or it's because they know the snow is usually gone by noon.
5. Absolute confusion about the Metro snow routes. Because of the hills, Metro routes shift during the snow, but it's never particularly clear where they get shifted to.
What you can do to get ready:
1. Don't panic. We've survived WTO, earthquakes, volcanoes, and Tim Eyman. Two inches of snow will not paralyze Seattle. This is not Atlanta.
2. But do stock up for the inevitable power outage. Make sure your flashlights have juiced batteries, your portable radio is ready to go, and your best available mammal is around for warmth during the cold night.
3. And make sure you have backed up your computer's hard drive. One bad power flux and your computer could be a goner. It happened to my TiVo during the January 2004 storm.
And if you're new to the whole experience of a Seattle snow event:
Just stay up to watch the 11pm news and get ready to laugh, especially if you're from the Midwest or Northeast. There is nothing funnier in Seattle than watching the local newspeople acting like a little snow shower is KILLER DEATH SNOW BLIZZARD OF DOOM '05!!!! Jim Forman [bio] on KING is always good for an accurate surmise of the impending doom about to come upon us, usually peppered with lines about children being stranded in ankle-high drifts and comparisons to previous massive 4" dumps of the last 100 years. KIRO does a decent job of injecting some gravitas into the hyperbole, while KING and KOMO tend towards the overkill of multiple reporters and multiple meteorologists. Q13 has been an up-and-comer in the "dire circumstances" category, mixing their Fox News we're-all-gonna-die style with mediocre meteorologists who have two radars but still just read verbatim from the National Weather Service forecast.
Again, people, just chill, drink some cocoa (or a mocha latte if you can snowshoe through the millimeters of snow to your nearest java dispenser), and enjoy watching the impending chaos.
(sorry, i had to edit that one. it is either a mocha or a latte. not both.)
Five things you can count on:
1. LIVE COVERAGE from the TOP OF QUEEN ANNE! (Doesn't matter that High Point in West Seattle is a couple hundred feet higher, it's QUEEN ANNE, and the TV god hath decreed that all LIVE OMIGAWD IT MIGHT SNOW shots in Seattle must be taken from the TOP OF QUEEN ANNE!)
2. LIVE COVERAGE from SNOQUALMIE PASS!!!! (Made better his year by the rockslides.)
3. All broadcasters will wear slick, stylish custom KING/KIRO/KOMO/Q13 all-weather -70F coats from Eddie Bauer or REI.
4. No sudden run on bread and milk at the stores. Seattleites have never done that, unlike other places in this country. It's either because Seattleites buy their soy milk from their organic producer and their bread from an artisan baker, or it's because they know the snow is usually gone by noon.
5. Absolute confusion about the Metro snow routes. Because of the hills, Metro routes shift during the snow, but it's never particularly clear where they get shifted to.
What you can do to get ready:
1. Don't panic. We've survived WTO, earthquakes, volcanoes, and Tim Eyman. Two inches of snow will not paralyze Seattle. This is not Atlanta.
2. But do stock up for the inevitable power outage. Make sure your flashlights have juiced batteries, your portable radio is ready to go, and your best available mammal is around for warmth during the cold night.
3. And make sure you have backed up your computer's hard drive. One bad power flux and your computer could be a goner. It happened to my TiVo during the January 2004 storm.
And if you're new to the whole experience of a Seattle snow event:
Just stay up to watch the 11pm news and get ready to laugh, especially if you're from the Midwest or Northeast. There is nothing funnier in Seattle than watching the local newspeople acting like a little snow shower is KILLER DEATH SNOW BLIZZARD OF DOOM '05!!!! Jim Forman [bio] on KING is always good for an accurate surmise of the impending doom about to come upon us, usually peppered with lines about children being stranded in ankle-high drifts and comparisons to previous massive 4" dumps of the last 100 years. KIRO does a decent job of injecting some gravitas into the hyperbole, while KING and KOMO tend towards the overkill of multiple reporters and multiple meteorologists. Q13 has been an up-and-comer in the "dire circumstances" category, mixing their Fox News we're-all-gonna-die style with mediocre meteorologists who have two radars but still just read verbatim from the National Weather Service forecast.
Again, people, just chill, drink some cocoa (or a mocha latte if you can snowshoe through the millimeters of snow to your nearest java dispenser), and enjoy watching the impending chaos.
(sorry, i had to edit that one. it is either a mocha or a latte. not both.)