White Christmas

[Barry]

Last year, here in Portland, Oregon we almost had a White Christmas. I consider a true White Christmas when it snows on Christmas Eve and you wake up to snow on Christmas morning. We didn't get that, but we did get 18" of snow at the airport in the ten days leading up to Christmas Eve. Christmas day we woke up to wet streets and the roads finally clear enough to drive.

We were able to make it to Grandma's house.

Nonetheless, it was the answer to a lifelong prayer for me...A foot of snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

These eight photos were taken just days before Christmas, at the height of the storm.








And some links...
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http://blog.traveloregon.com/2009/01/05 ... onderland/
That last link, btw, is Rocky Butte, where we do the balloon release every year except last year.

To all of you for whom this is just normal winter business as usual, this is very NOT usual for Portland.

I'm wishing and hoping for more snow again this year, maybe even a true White Christmas.

Peace,
Barry

[Arcadia]

I´ve met snow-snow face to face last august and I enjoyed a lot! May you have your white and happy christmas! (we´ll wish from this side of the world for a not too much rainy one! )

[Barry]

Thanks, Arcadia, but it don't look like it'll be happenin' this year. Highs in the low 50s, lows in the 40s, and nothin' but rain, it seems. Ah well, normal winter business as usual is okay, too, I guess.

Peace,
Barry

[Barry]

Okay, so it wasn't on Christmas, but we did get some snow in Portland today. It was a more typical Portland, OR snowfall, and it went something like this...

Around 2:30 p.m. the first flakes appeared. Fifteen minutes later the ground was turning white, though the streets were still just wet. By 3:30 p.m. it was sticking on the roads. By 5:00 p.m. we had an inch and a half on the sidewalk, a quarter inch of packed snow on the street out front. Major arterials were still just mostly wet or slushy. By 6:30 p.m. there were between two and a half and three inches on the ground, an inch of packed snow on the lesser-travelled streets, and gridlock on all the freeways and main roads around town. This city shuts down in a minor snowfall. People making a normally thirty minute commute are at this typing still in their cars trying to get home. Now, nearing 7:30 p.m., it appears pretty much over. The temperature hovers right around freezing and is expected to warm overnight. More precipitation is expecetd, but it is said it will be all liquid. In the morning I expect to wake to only a memory, though perhaps the snowman my son made this afternoon will have survived the night. He his mother and I took a walk just now, as we always do when it snows (It's become a tradition for our family) so as to enjoy it while it lasts. It was a wet, sticky snow, really quite beautiful. All the trees, whether leaf-bare or needle-full, were laden with the stuff. Every flowerhead left over from summer became a "snowball plant," as my wife terms them. As inconveient as it is when one has to drive in it to get to work, or to get home, I still will always love snow. It's really quite beautiful.

Thanks, universe, for snow.

Peace,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

I just saw these... that's lots of snow, Barry!

[Barry]

Yeah, but the situation got reversed this year, though. This year for Christmas, you got our snow from last year. Sorry about that, or glad we could help out, as the case may be.

Peace,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

the snowman would make a cool banner maybe... y'think?

or... the first or second one.. hmmm

permission requested to play with them for winter banners for the site

[Barry]

Permission granted.

Peace,
Barry