"record snow"

As some of you know, the northwest has been experiencing "record snowfall" and the "worst winter in 20 years." Figures... once I move, they have a bad winter. Weather hates me and follows me around. On the bright side, if I stayed in Madison, I wouldn't be getting anything better. We thought Madison's 100+ inches last year was bad enough, but their snowfall this year is about 10 inches ahead of the pace set last year!

Record snow for Seattle is only a measly six inches. Psh. That's nothing! Worst winter in 20 years is only 20-30 degrees! Psh. That's nothing!

Everytime we check out somewhere, the checker always says something like "man, can you believe that weather out there? it's so cold!" To which we scoff and say "We are from Minnesota, you don't know cold. This is an unseasonably nice winter day there." This is said, of course, by Kevin who is still wearing a t-shirt and nothing more.

You really would think this weather is nothing given where Kevin and I have lived for the majority of our lives, but they make six inches of snow seem like 16 inches of snow. They don't plow--except for I5. They just leave everything. It wouldn't be bad if they knew how to deal with it, but the Seattle method of dealing with winter is to shut all business down.

Also, the hills are awful. They don't plow those either... downtown is a deathtrap. Perhaps you saw the two charter buses leaning over the guardrail over looking I5 on the news, very very scary!

When you aren't used to having your entire city going into a lockdown over a little snow, it is a bit annoying. No doubt it is less annoying than coping with 6 months of -20 degree weather and 100+ inches of snow, but still not the paradise I imagined.