Severe weather alert

When the local news stations say this, I'm skeptical. But when the national weather service says it, I pay attention. The wind is howling, the clouds are blowing east, with bright patches of blue sky quickly covered with dark grey clouds tinged with pink from the sunrise. Beautiful here in the valley, but it's snowing at my house, according to weather.com.

All morning long on Wednesday, we watched the weather stream past the windows, changing all the time. At lunchtime, it was 40 degrees and windy. By 12:05, the wind died down and instantly the clouds settled in. Amy says it's snowing hard in Tacoma, with silver-dollar flakes. Maybe Kent is the eye of the storm, and everything is turning white around us… we'll see when we leave work today and try to get home!

On Thursday, I woke to snow. So I decided to work from home today. When I sent e-mail to my boss, he replied that he was currently sitting behind a spun-out truck, and that I should definitely work from home. It was really cold today; barely above 25 by noon, and only made it to freezing during the day. I didn't venture out all day, didn't even walk down to the mailbox.

All the outlying school districts are closed; many of them are on winter break so it’s not a big deal. I was hoping Flow would close down today, but no luck. It’s beautiful outside, the trees are covered and it looks like Christmas all over again! Forecast is for more snow today, icy cold overnight and clear tomorrow. Rain returns Saturday. Looks like the cabin got a lot of snow; still snowing there.

We’ve got 3-4 inches of snow, and it’s cold so the snow is staying around. It’s supposed to drop to 18 degrees overnight; that’s at the airport, so it will be colder here in the foothills. No new snow today, but there’s been a snow cloud hovering over North Mason county most of the morning. Hope our chimney doesn’t leak like it did last winter.