It's mid Saturday afternoon and it's snowing again in Redmond. Just a light snow, but it wasn't predicted. I went to Redmond Town Center to see Pan's Labyrinth and when I emerged I was a bit surprised to see the air full of meandering flakes.

"Cold enough to snow, eh?!?" said an enthusiastic movie-goer, holding the exit door open for me to follow him.

"Indeed!" I replied. I edged over to the railing to look down on the street: nothing much was sticking. It was fluffy, dry, slow snow. Fine. Off to Borders and then QFC for some groceries. The new snow is accumulating on the roads now, putting a fluffy, slippery layer ontop of all the compacted ice the previous snow has been turned into.

The snow that hit this past Wednesday, though... that was a different story.

A week before the event happened, the weather service put out a severe weather warning. I use the weather feature in My Yahoo! and I've become accustomed to looking for that little asterisk next to the town's weather prediction for the day. Asterisk means: better check this warning out! Usually it's about flooding. But sometimes it's about high-winds. Or snow. Or icy roads. Or (as it was this morning), tsunamis.

So I was at work Wednesday, checking in on the North Seattle radar time to time, when I noticed a big mean blob in the Everett / Mulkiteo area edging around the protective boundary of the Seattle rain-shadow (from the Olympic mountains) and moving towards the south: right towards Woodinville and Redmond. That didn't make sense. Our weather out here doesn't move like that. I kept an eye on it. Direct hit, in the making.

I had a lot of reading to do so, as soon as I saw the blob was intent on descending upon the Eastside, I grabbed my laptop and headed out, stopping by the QFC on the way home. Looking to the north towards home, all the sky was filled with a wall of dark, thick, grey clouds.

I arrived home just as it hit. It was a snow squall. I didn't know those things existed, but it helps to explain how snow can stick to the ground and roads after having a 50 degree day: a snow squall comes along and unloads fast accumulating graupel. That's something like big, soft, snowy-hail. Everything was covered in white in minutes as the graupel pummeled everything. I parked the Subaru at the neighbors and came through the back-fence, Bella happily bouncing along side of me as I made a bee-line for the back-door.

I noticed that I missed a call from Elisa about right then. And I realized while I made it home this time and avoided a hellish commute in the middle of the snow event, Elisa was out in the worse of it.

It was a long night. After the snow subsided, I went out and shoveled snow so that Elisa would have a path to get the van up to the house. Even though the van has four-wheel drive, Elisa had done the smart thing and got off the road for a couple of hours to let all the frantic drivers either get home or abandon their cars (lots of hills and icy roads mean lots of cars that can't get anywhere).

I took a break from shoveling our long drive to talk to Elisa as she made her way home. Right after we disconnected, I heard a loud snap coming from up the hill, behind our poll barn. Then a series of serious snaps, following by a deep walloping sound that thundered through the trees. Some poor tree couldn't take the load of clingy, wet snow. I took a quiet moment to eye the trees surrounding me.

Elisa made it home safely. Right before bed, it started snowing again.

The morning was glorious. A sunny day with snow everywhere. Here's a picture looking out of our sunroom off the deck across the valley. The trees behind Chateau Saint Michelle are all lit up with the emerging sun:

Our hilly road leading to the house was passable by the Subaru. As the road got more traffic, the compacted snow got denser and denser, but the sunshine helped to melt the portion that meets the highway (well, the sunshine and a dosing of ice melting pellets). Thursday night I took Elisa to the airport and while the side roads getting to the highway had their moments, the highway was tooting along at 65 mph no problem.

The only issue I had was on the way back, as the roads freezed more and more, and I slowly came up on a patch of thick ice in front of a red-light. The ABS on the Subaru went crazy doing its job of keeping the car on target and not slipping. Then I saw a van coming up behind me that was going to hit the same patch. I flashed my brake lights and they slowed down before hitting the patch.

I love looking at the snow covered trees around The Tree House. I haven't made it back behind the poll barn to find the poor tree that fell. Yet. Between the windstorms and the snow we've certainly culled the weak trees.

Oh, and I feel guilty about not telling people (and Elisa) to bug out and get home when I saw that big blob headed our way. I have a strong desire not to be Chicken Little. Microsoft was a complete mess, from what I was told, as everyone tried to leave and barely no one could get traction up the hill leading to one of the main exits. Roads were closed off. Trucks with tow-lines were helping: one car at a time.

If anything, we're becoming more rugged people out of necessity. And for a reason I can't quite explain... that makes me happy.