First Snow and Ice of 2024

The January winter storms have hit and covered much of the Willamette Valley with snow and a crust of ice.  Power lines are down, and it seems like half of my friends up and down the valley are without power, or their wells have stopped, or trees have come crashing down near or onto their houses.  The city has closed public parks and bike paths.

We’re lucky to be in a part of Eugene that seems to have robust power transmission.  I believe the last time we were without power was due to someone speeding down Willamette Street at something like fifty miles per hour and smacking into a power pole (Willamette Street is straight, so they would have had to work a little bit to hit a pole at the side of the road).  

The time before that was a strange occurrence: lightning overhead caused a mechanical switch (maybe a line arrester) at the top of a pole near our house to trip.  I’m guessing that the lightning caused an induction surge in the transmission line.  Only houses on our side of the block were without power, but some linemen came and used a very long (and insulated) cherry-picker type tool to flip the switch closed.  

Luckily, the temperature has only gotten into the mid twenties, so the animals can go outside when they need to.  Aoife doesn’t appreciate the snow on her paws—although one of her plush toys, a fox, has turned into an icicle that she likes to chew. The cats only want to be outside for a short period of time, mostly so they can stalk songbirds attracted by the suet we’ve put out .  The snow is covered with a crust of ice; walking is not too bad as the ice is bumpy and dry.  

Today it’s supposed to be sunny—it’s currently sunny in Corvallis—but at the moment it is still overcast with diffuse light bouncing between the white ground and the grey clouds.   But there’s a Winter Storm Warning issued for today through tomorrow morning, so maybe all we’ll get is deeper grey.  

I think an expedition for chocolate may be in order.