Oh the weather outside.....

...is frightful. Inside it's really delightful.

There has been enormous hype for days about a huge storm hitting the Pacific Northwest. Winds were forecast for 90 miles an hour in the foothills of the Cascades. Wait, what? Ninety miles an hour? I don't think I've ever even heard of winds that high. And the forecast called for two FEET of snow on the Kitsap peninsula, across the sound from Seattle. And no, we don't ever get two feet of snow out here. Ever. Except in the mountains. The city of Seattle has 27 snow plows. None of us are ready for two FEET.

Luckily local UUs pointed me to the best weather guy in Seattle ever when we moved here, and last week I learned that he has a blog. And his blog said, nah, not 90 miles an hour, more like 50 or 60. And probably not that much snow. As the day went on he said it might even turn to rain by tomorrow. So a storm yes, but maybe not quite as horrible. The one thing is he says "please be patient...it is too soon to throw in the towel on this event....yet the pressure different across the mountains is extraordinary...nearly as high as I have ever seen it...nearly 16 millibars across the Cascades (Seattle-Yakima pressure difference)." Yeah, he's the one to listen to, I'm convinced. It's not over.

So, I guess it's a good thing that we cancelled church. And the baby blessing that people came in to see from out of town. Ouch. Break my heart. And when I say "we" it was really the board and the board president. It's their church and we serve them, so I think it should be the people who decide. And frankly, our staff all live far away from church, so we'd have had to couch surf to be there in the morning, which I was completely ready to do, and am deeply thankful that I'm not stuck away from my family for days.

So, here we are. The winds are picking up, the snow is coming down in these weird little pellets. We've already had a week of weather that feels JUST like the 34 winters in Minnesota I spent before I moved here to get away from winter. And we're stocked with food, batteries, candles and charged up cell phones, just in case the wind blows down the power lines and everything does go dark tonight.

And then you open the front door, and there are THESE two ruffians on the front stoop. Trouble, trouble I tell ya.

Hope everyone is staying warm, and safe. Snowplows were pulled off the roads in Minnesota because conditions were unsafe, I see church cancellation notices from MA on UUpdates. People are feeling the cold in Winnipeg, Houston, Minneapolis. Lots of folks are in the path tonight. I guess we'll see what the morning brings.

Be well!