Noon Update and Editorial

Well...it looks like more snow is on the way. I just got a look at the most high resolution forecasts available in our region (the 4-km WRF-GFS if you like to impress your friends!) and a collection of other forecast models used to give some idea of forecast uncertainty. As this point they are suggesting that another batch of snow will began in the early morning hours Wednesday, snow through 9-10 AM, turn to rain, and then turn back to snow later in the afternoon. This would be a slushy mess.

Right now, temperatures are getting above freezing...making things nice and slippery. Did you know that the colder ice is the less slippery it is? When ice is below freezing, there still is a layer of liquid water on its surface...that is why it is slippery. The colder it is, the thinner that liquid layer is and thus the ice becomes less slippery...particularly as the temperature drops below 25F.

Editorial

Seattle is really not ready for snow! You would think that instead of reducing the number of buses radically as they have done, they would reprogrammed cancelled routes using the buses for the streets they have cleared. No way. There appear to be less buses on key arterial routes. I have given "Snow Talks" at Sea-tac Airport for years and the staff there always brags they have more snow removal equipment than the entire city. I can believe it. The City claims they have 25-30 vehicles with plows. Well, if they do, it is certainly not enough...and major routes (such as Sand Point Way in NE Seattle) are completely unattended. It is true that having extra plows for city trucks are not free and that snow events like this are unusual. But the economic loss of allowing the city to be crippled by such modest snows is substantial...and major decisions (like the cancellation of schools last Wednesday when no snow fell) are made in the context of such poor snow removal. Buses are important when cars have problems and the bustracking web site of Metro should a key tool. Unfortunately, they didn't size their server well...so it was completely overwhelmed this morning. And they hide the bustracking software on their web site as well. Last week I was in NY and they had a minor snowstorm. Plows were everywhere almost immediately...including secondary and tertiary roads. Certainly, we can do better. Global warming will not be the answer to this problem...at least not for 50 years.