SNOOOOOW!

To the best of my knowledge WWU is the only place of higher education open north of Snohomish county. There is one public school open in the county, and that's in the back country where they get snow more often due to elevation. Classes here started at 9am, only the 8am classes got canceled.

The drive into work was quite interesting. They don't believe in salt out here, nor do they get this kind of snow every year. This means that the bare-and-dry formula for roads of:

1. Plow to get the top layer off
2. Salt to melt the compacted stuff
3. Plow again to get the now-slushy compacted stuff off the road
4. Sand to make refreeze less dangerous and provide targets for solar melting

Isn't followed here. In town they just plow and sand. Happily, on I-5 WSDOT handles that and they know about deicers (not salt, though). I-5 is pretty clear right now, even though downtown Bellingham has no clear roads. The major arterials have bare pavement poking out in spots, but it isn't what you'd call clean. Or safe.

I put chains on my car to get out of where I live. It's the only way. I also kept them on for the whole drive in to work, because that's safest and it's hard to unchain on demand. Happily, I don't have to use I-5 for any of my drive to work.

There are a lot of people in the office today, but I know of a few snow birds who are iced in and not coming to work.

What's worse is that we're expecing snow, then rain overnight. Which means tomorrow Bellingham may be a skating rink!