Oh Joy, A Week Plus Of Wintry Weather Has Arrived

Good news for the kids and those who are able to stay at home, bad news for those who have to drive in the stuff for a living.


After being shown the videos of the snow in Portland all day Sunday, the icy wonder finally arrived in full force here in the mid-valley early Sunday evening, and with this snow lying on top of some of the melted snow and rain from earlier in the day, it certainly made for some hazardous driving conditions in this area all day long.



I actually walked to work today, a 15 minute task that presented no great obstacle. I was also wondering if we were going to be able to get our Eugene route on the road for the day.


The roads here were pretty slick, but at least they showed signs of having been worked on, down in Eugene, particularly on Coburg Road heading south and most of 99W heading north towards Junction City from the Beltline, it certainly looked as if most of the road was simply packed snow and ice. It took me about 40 plus minutes to get from Jerry's Home Improvement to the north end of Junction City in the afternoon. The Coburg route, which I undertook just before noon, was a nervy game of keeping far enough back and letting the guy in front of you work out his traction problems. I have no explanation of why Coburg Road south was so packed of snow and ice north of Cal Young Road, but on a hunch, based partly on being tired of using the curbs as bumpers to steer myself back onto the main road, I headed over to Oakway Road and found the path to downtown Eugene a bit easier to navigate.


Pearl Street wasn't too bad, but both westbound 18th and 11th streets had their moments of icy patches in the early afternoon, luckily the traffic was light enough so that give the traffic that was out the room to move fairly easily. Eastbound on the Beltline to 99W was no picnic though, and after reports of the westbound lanes of the highway being close, that traffic had barely begun to have proceeded on that path when I passed it close to 2 p.m.



I was a bit worn out by the time I had made it home, but for some reason, 99W north of Harrisburg was clear of snow and ice for substantial stretches at a time, and between Halsey and Shedd, it was possible to hit 50 mph. That all changed of course once I hit the city limits but it was still a damn sight better than crawling through Eugene traffic.


Here's the STORY about the upcoming weather prospects, and the picture above was taken earlier today shortly after 10 a.m. just south of Shedd looking west. It's not too often we get to see those hills so clearly defined.