Snow Blizzard

We all have heard about the snow blizzard over the weekend in the south and east coast of the United States.

According to my brother who lives in Virginia the weather had been quite mild this year compared to last year at the same time until the storm happened. I talk to my brother Jack most every weekend unless he is out of town and is unavailable. Saturday morning he said that they had about two feet of snow and expected it would be at least thirty inches before the snow would stop. He shoveled snow a couple times as well.

On Monday the federal government continued to be closed. I am sure it will take several days for the area to recover however the meteorologists expect more at the end of the week.

In my life time we have never had that much snow in Western Washington. Of course, the mountains can have that much snow happen at once. The east coast doesn’t have mountains like we have in the west so it is the reason they get more snow than we get in the cities. The most snow I remember at one time was around a foot and it happened several times more when I was growing up. These days we may get six inches of snow if we are lucky. Regardless the amount of snow we get it is hard to drive because we have so many hills and most people are not accustomed to driving in it as well.

My dad told us when he was a young man Gig Harbor bay was frozen over in 1950. I am not sure how long it lasted however it was very thick because he was able to ice skate and some people with cars drove on it as well. I am sure not for them but I dad told us how cars sunk into the harbor when the ice melted. I guess they were not able to tell that the ice had melted some. We thought it was funny when he told us the story. The last time I was in the harbor museum they had a picture showing people skating on the bay. I believe my dad may have been one of them in the picture.

I do remember several times where I saw ice on the bay however it was very thin so could not even skate. Most of the recent times a little ice on the edges of the bay only. In those cases the temperatures were in the low twenties. I am not sure what the temperatures were in 1950 however I expect likely around zero or less. Even at the best of times the water is quite cold in the harbor. As a kid went swimming in the summer however did not stay in very long because the water was so cold. The last time I remember going into the bay when I was a kid it was hot out so I was sweating and I wanted to cool off.

So you see we had some good times as a kid when it snowed here besides the mountains. The hills allowed us to go sledding just like we were in the mountains. Sure brings back good memories.