STANDSTILL - DAY TWO

Jill and I are both at home in Hillsboro again today due to the solid layer of ice that now blankets nearly everything. If you don't have four-wheel drive, chains AND high clearance, it's extremely treacherous driving in the Portland metro area today. Road maintenance crews have had negligible impact on all of the ice as a result of freezing rain that stayed most of the night.

The meteorologists grossly underestimated the longevity of cold air barreling through the Columbia Gorge from the east. The Gorge acts much like a wind tunnel and, unfortunately, eastern Oregon and the Yakima Valley have stubbornly held onto a pocket of frigid air, despite southerly warm air that's been streaming into the state.


From www.katu.com

The result is that the Gorge supplies the metro area with very cold air while the warm, moist air continues to slide over instead of breaking it up as the forecasters predicted. Rain falls from the warm system, passes through the cold air and either freezes in the air - sleet - or hits the ground wet and then freezes on contact - freezing rain.

Here's a link to a bunch of photos taken by viewers of KATU. Among all the stations, they seem to have the best amateur photographers. I rather liked this one, though:



-Interstate 84 is still closed from Portland to Hood River - poor truckers.
-Flights in and out of PDX airport are delayed until 5pm at the earliest.
-Parts of Highway 101 on the coast are still closed.
-I-5 south of Wilsonville (southern tip of metro area) requires chains on all vehicles.
-The MAX trains are closed in all directions - that's how I get to work.
-All school districts are closed, nearly all public agencies and jurisdictions are closed, and for the first time ever, Nike Headquarters in Beaverton (no too far from here) has closed. Intel, God bless 'em, is still open.. their fabrication plants here in Washington County lose millions with a blink-of-an-eye power surge, much less a two-day work stoppage.

We've been told that it's expected to warm up here on the west side of the metro area. Based on my view out the back window, I'd agree. Rain is falling, but it's not freezing but rather pooling on top of the ice that formed overnight. The temperature is still 28 degrees here, however, so I don't see it getting above freezing anytime soon.

So what now? Well, the locals are still worried about the flooding that will likely occur after tomorrow. We are expected to warm up very quickly after this with continued rain. So snowmelt and rain will combine and the river levels are expected to climb substantially. We're not at risk at our house, but I wouldn't want to be living within any river's 50-year or 100-year floodzone.

Here is a link to a webpage that was written during the 1996 Willamette Valley flood.. with plenty of photos and comparisons to a flood in 1964 that was equally devastating. It's actually a lecture by a professor at the University of Oregon prepared and presented that very day in 1996.

More later!