Normally, this is great, we'll get maybe one snow a year in the city, and then it's typically a dusting that melts away by mid-day. However, it also atrophies any snow-handling skills people might have once had, if they ever did. So when we get more substantial snows like we did this December, people freak out and don't know what to do.
On day 1, it was mostly an unusual occurrence, and a mild novelty.
The snow kept coming down, and we ended up with a pretty significant accumulation, far more than what is typical.
We had about three to four days where we were snowed in, and the snow issues persisted for up to a week. The cold weather and periodic flurries kept things pretty nasty. It wasn't particularly brutal by midwest standards, but the hills and terrain make any driving treacherous, so we mostly just stayed inside with a fire burning, and a few walking trips to the market for provisions.
The dogs certainly loved it.
However, the city was less prepared to deal with things. Partly by design, they refused to salt the roads. Check out this Seattle Times article entitled "Seattle refuses to use salt; roads snow-packed by design" here. It was pretty ridiculous, as they feared that salt runoff might be bad for the Puget Sound. Someone should point out to them that the Puget Sound is ocean salt water! Other ineffective measures included putting rubber blades on the few snowplows that they had running so as to not be too effective at snow removal. The plan (sic) was to create a six-inch packed ice slab for road travelers.
One near catastrophe was two tour buses trying to navigate the city streets ended up crashing through a retaining barrier and hanging out onto the I-5 freeway. Fortunately, no one was hurt and everyone was evacuated successfully.
