We seem to be out of scary names for winter storms

As of 1100 this morning.

As of about 2200 last night.

This is fairly typical of snow storms here in the low lands, low. A mere dusting, sufficient to terrify Californians.

As of about 1100 this morning.

You might get the impression from the fact that I blog about weather like this that it happens a lot.

That would be a "Man bites dog" news report.

Somebody insisted on 'sploring the backyard, but soon repented.

Going and Coming

Sort of an NRAAM post, pics on the way there and on the way back...

All photographs © 2019 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter.

On climb out from SEA

It got a bit hazy once we made altitude, but this gives you an idea of the local terrain.
(Click to embiggenate.)
I was on the wrong side of the plane for shots of Mt. Rainier.
Too far south for Mt. Adams, Mt. Baker, or Glacier Peak.

Somewhere over the Mississippi weather started to close in.
Last 45 minutes or so of the flight into IND was rough.

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 1

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 2

On final into SEA, sunset over the Olympics 3

SEA has airplanes hanging from the ceilings, so naturally, IND displays race cars...

Obligatory local color/architecture shots:

The buildings in that part of town are all connected by a series of skywalks.
Most of them are not this fancy.

Will we or won't we? -- UPDATE

According to the National Weather Service (as seen on Twitter), in order for it to be a White Christmas there must be one inch of snow at 0700 Local.

Just so some of you know, the official definition of a "white Christmas" in the U.S. is 1" of snow on the ground at 7 AM local time Christmas morning. The definition also varies for other counties. #Seattle's probability of a white Christmas is about 7%.

— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) December 23, 2017

As of 1600 Local 24 December here in the 98-double Ought-3, it is snowing lightly; the original forecast called for snow and then rain and then more snow, but the current forecast says snow and snow showers until tomorrow afternoon, so...

...Maybe?

UPDATE: It is now 10:26 AM on Monday, December 25th, and we have about three inches, with more drifting slowly down, so I am saying we did, indeed, have a White Christmas by the Government Standard.

Ho ho ho.

FLASH!

FLASH! It is snowing in the 98-double-ought-3. No stickage yet, but maybe this time...❄#Weather, #FederalWay @NWSSeattle

— Drang (@DWDrang) February 5, 2017

@NWSSeattle Flakes are bigger and there's more of them. 🐱 came in and is applying 🐱 Gravity, so unknown if we have stickage yet.

— Drang (@DWDrang) February 5, 2017

The kitty emojis are handy for saving you from the 140-charecter limit... 😉

Cat Gravity is still being applied, BTW.

FOLLOW-UP: Cat gravity removed. She wants back outside, I don't think so.

Snow sticking on grass.

***NEWS FLASH***

IT IS SNOWING IN THE 98003!


THAT IS ALL.

****

Although maybe I ought to add that the weather forecast gives us a 7% chance of rain right now...

Gun Skool (Pugetopolis Edition) Update

Realized a few days ago that, when I listed local shooting schools in the area (in post The Clue Meter: Gun Skool Thoughts, Part I -- Pugetopolis), I left one out.

Norpoint Shooting Center is far enough north that I forgot about it, but one of the owners was one of my instructors in the FAS Defensive Shotgun Class I took last year. Some co-workers (who have a simply insane commute) have taken multiple classes there and give it two trigger fingers up.

Looking at the course catalog, I may be enticed to make the trek up that way myself...

At The Fair

One of our first dates (26 years ago!) was going to The Western Washington Fair. Later it was simply called "The Puyallup Fair", for where the Western Washington Fairgrounds are. (This is also where the Washington Arms Collectors have most of their gun shows.) Now it has changed its name again, claiming to be The Washington State Fair.

Whatever.

So, there you are, taking you 900 pound pumpkin to the fair,
thinking you've got it made,
and some guy shows up with an 1100 pound gourd.
And then some other guy shows up with one that weighs 1300 pounds...

The worlds biggest kohlrabi...

Which was spawning.

Hooray for hops!

Honorable tree-san.

Somebody gave the bacon beast a perm!

Hippie cow.
(Actually a Tibetan Yak.)

Horny cow.
("The Watusi Cow has such large horns as a cooling mechanism...
blood circulates through them and cools off...")

Once again ran into Daddy Bear at the Fair.

Did not have scones, which are a standard, at least here. Was supposed to meet a colleague from work, but a minor crisis led to our arriving late enough that she and her husband had already left, so  that beer will have to wait. (Then again, this year all the beer gardens, pubs, and the like are posted "No Minors", which sign on an establishment serving alcohol in this state also means "No licensed firearms.")

Didn't see any rodeo events, and missed the draft horses. 

Did stop and chat with the techs who sold us our orthotics, though, and Mrs. Drang had hers adjusted. Mine are OK. Picked up some honey, passed on the fudge as we still have some in the fridge from the spring.

Passed on taunting the democrats in their booth. Didn't see where the Libertarian Party was set up this year, not sure if I would have been able to resist the urge ask WTF they were thinking?!

Walked until our feet were killing us. Came home.

Gun Skool Thoughts, Part I -- Pugetopolis

As word got out at work that I had attended MAG40, I started being queried about going to a shooting school. Not surprising, I guess.

One of the things I was asked (including online) was "Where can I go for classes?"

I have personal experience with two sources of instruction:

• The Firearms Academy of Seattle, Inc.. This is where I attended MAG40, and the Defensive Shotgun Course I took last October. Training here is excellent. If you are taking a multi-day class, unless you live very close you might want to stay in town. (They do have provisions for camping: "Set up camp over in that flat area under the trees.")
• Classes at  Federal Way Discount Guns. I took several classes here (Basic, "Progressive" or Intermediate, and "Urban Defensive Tactics"). At this time they only show two courses in the "catalog", Basic Handgun and "AR-15 Rifle Tactics." They also do private instruction by arrangement. 

I just received an email from Janice, the lady who was running training at FWDG which announced that her operation, Women and Guns, is now teaching in Olympia. Classes shown on that site are for women only.

Another local source of training which is  highly reputable but which I personally have no experience with is InSights Training Center, which conducts it's classes locally at West Coast Armory and West Coast Armory North.

A training operation which markets itself heavily (they have a booth at the state fair!!!) but whose instruction I have no experience with is Friday Harbor Gun Runners.
(Not gonna lie: I hate the name, and I hate the pirate logo. But if their marketing is successful, I guess my personal taste counts for nothing.)
(OTOH, their training operation is actually and formally Northwest Safety First with an Eagle-and-Flag logo, which is nice and responsible sounding, but I had to research this post to learn it...)

Most or all of the local indoor ranges and clubs have classes of some sort. Other than my "local" noted above, I cannot speak to the nature of the training.
Indoor Ranges:

• The Marksman, Puyallup, WA
• Champion Arms, Kent, Washington

Clubs usually have members who are NRA Certified Instructors and teach the NRA classes.
Listed in no particular order:

• Paul Bunyan Rifle and Sportsman's Club Home Page
• Tacoma Rifle and Revolver Club
• Tacoma Sportsmen's Club
• Renton Fish and Game Club (Only lists Hunter's Education; they have a heavy match schedule.)
• Snoqualmie Valley Rifle Club. No classes currently scheduled, which is a shame, I helped run a couple of classes there.
• Kenmore Shooting Range. 
• Cascade Shooting Facilities (FKA Cascade Rifle & Pistol Club.) Currently only lists a woman's handgun course. Pretty extensive range facility, out in the country far enough that they should have a few years before they feel urban sprawls encroachments, unlike most of the other clubs listed.

Generally speaking, the NRA courses could be considered to be of the "Guns 101" types of thing; they have more advanced classes, but Personal Protection In The Home needs two days, and Personal Protection Outside The Home requires PPITH as a prerequisite, and another two (or more) days. And no one is willing to pay much for an NRA class; which is fine from most instructors points of view, we don't teach these to make money, but if it ties up range facilities for days....

By the way, Microsoft and Boeing both have active gun clubs for employees; Boeing used to have a corporate indoor pistol range, the backstop of which it gave to the club ("Get this out of our storage or we'll sell it for scrap!") , which donated it to a new indoor range in exchange for membership privileges.

Since I had at least one query for "My brother lives in the Puget Sound region and he wants to know where to go for training", I welcome any additions to this list that others may have. Leave a comment or shoot me an email at the address over there on the left side of your screen and I'll add it. Thanks!

EDIT TO ADD: I suspect the paucity of classes listed at the clubs is due to the effects of Initiative I-594 a couple of years ago, which made it illegal to hand a gun  to someone not your relative without a background check. The training exemption makes it legal to do so if the gun remains at the range full-time. Not a lot of help...
Note this well, you who live in states considering similar "common sense regulations."

Earworm, Life Imitating Art Edition

Semi carrying 22.5 tons of bananas overturns in Skagit Co. | KIRO-TV

I am shocked, SHOCKED!!!

Gov. Inslee halts Bertha work after sinkhole forms near project - Puget Sound Business Journal

After moving less than 200 feet in the past 10 months, the Bertha tunnel boring machine will stop drilling again.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday ordered tunneling work to halt temporarily after a sinkhole formed near the waterfront earlier in the week – the same day digging stopped after a barge carrying dirt tipped over and spilled into Elliott Bay.

Seattle Tunnel Partners will have to find the cause of the sinkhole and prove the contractor can prevent similar incidents in the future before resuming work, Inslee said. Bertha is scheduled to start drilling under the viaduct in March.

“STP will not be allowed to resume tunneling until their analysis and work plans meet the satisfaction of our experts,” Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson said in a statement. “I want to remind everyone that replacing the viaduct is critical to public safety.”

 I predicted at the time this was going to make Boston's Big Dig look like a marvel of efficiency.  (a co-worker from Bahston shrugs and says "Hey, it was only 8 times over budget.")

Looks like I underestimated Seattle's ability to add an element of low farce to municipal incompetence.

UPDATE: Wikipedia is several months behind the news: Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gee, the forecast was wrong

It wasn't supposed to snow!

Observations from a rainy day

This isn't a Pineapple Express, which is heavy rains caused by fronts out of Hawaii; I guess when the weather comes to us from Japan, we call it the Sushi Express? (Virtuously avoiding tasteless jokes regarding the date it hit...)

Anyway. Traffic through Tacoma hasn't gotten any better.

Tactical Tailor is one of those stores where it pays to know what I'm looking for, get in, get it, and get out. Bunches and bunches of gear I no longer have any need for...

Quantico Tactical offers manufacturer's LE/MIL prices at all retail locations. Speaking of spending money...

Despite recent events and hyperbole from the gun-banners responding to same, there does not seem to be a shortage of guns or ammo in stores.

Except .22LR. Again.

Or still, if you prefer.

As a show of solidarity...

...with our Mid-western friends, we here in Pugetopolis are bracing for a bit of Global Warning ourselves:

Special Statement

Statement as of 12:46 PM PST on November 22, 2015

... Snow showers are possible in The Lowlands Tuesday and it will
become windy and cold around Bellingham and in the San Juans... 

A cold front will move through western Washington Monday afternoon
and evening. A cold upper level low pressure system will shift
over the region Monday night and Tuesday. This will cause the snow
level to drop to around 500 feet across western Washington late
Monday night and Tuesday morning.

Colder air will move down from British Columbia Tuesday morning.
This will further drop the snow level down to sea level in the
north part of western Washington. It will be windy across western
Whatcom County and in the San Juans with cold Fraser outflow.

Stay tuned to the latest forecasts at www.Weather.Gov or your
favorite news source.

Www.Weather.Gov/Seattle

Granted, compared to what folks back home anticipate on an annual basis, our cold snaps and snowy weather is pretty pathetic, but after the last year or two, I anticipate a great deal of angst over even just a few flakes.

So to speak.

You had one job...

So, I was checking the weather report on Weather Underground, as is my wont, and looking to get an update on how much snow may have fallen in the Cascades, as critical as Cascade snowfall is to municipal water supplies around here, and saw this weather report:

West Already Feeling Impacts of Ajax, First Named Winter Storm of the Season| Weather Underground

Now, personally, I think naming winter storms is pretty dumb, but whatever it takes to draw viewer eyeballs to your TV "meteorologists."

Anyway.

The "news" item includes this:

Washington

The National Weather Service has issued various flood watches, winter storm warnings and high wind watches for the northern half of Washington.
KCPQ out of Seattle-Tacoma is warning drivers to prepare for snowy roads and and possible delays on the Cascade mountain passes on Monday. More than a foot of new snow is expected above 4,000 feet, and 6 to 10″ at Snoqualmie Pass.

When you click the link that purports to go to the "northern half of Washington"?

It takes you to a weather forecast for Washington DC.

So.
Much.
Fail.

NO WAY!!!!

Bertha’s restart delayed again; will there be drilling by Christmas? | The Seattle Times

The four-lane, tolled¹ Highway 99 tunnel from Sodo² to South Lake Union is now scheduled to be ready in April 2018, more than two years past the original December 2015 opening the contractors touted in 2010, when they won the $1.35 billion tunnel contract.

More from the "Duh" files:

• Watchdog: Obamacare Exchanges Fail to Detect Counterfeit Documents | Americans for Tax Reform
• Obama vetoes $612 billion defense policy bill in rebuke to GOP | Fox News
• Justice Dept.: No criminal charges for ex-IRS official Lois Lerner 

 

1. First I heard that it's going to be a toll road. Doesn't surprise me, Seattle being run by a bunch of car-hating collectivists who are always eager to squeeze another dime from the taxpayers.
2. "South of Downtown", originally "South of Dome", so-called for the Kingdome, which was demolished before it was paid for. Some ceiling tiles fell off, leading the PTB to assume it was about to fall apart. The demolition crew said it was one of the hardest jobs they ever had.

Interesting...

JBLM* hosts Indian Army troops | The Seattle Times

I can't help but ponder the fact that the US military is said to be forming closer relations with the Indian Army even while the CINC seems to be bound and determined to piss off all nations that are, have been, and should be friends and allies.

(I note that US-Indian relations showed great improvement under His Imperial Majesty Barack Hussein Obama's predecessor...)

(Daniel Hannan has pointed out that, having thrown off the Yoke of Perfidious Albion and dabbled in a form of Marxism, that India has been gradually moving closer to the Anglosphere.)

Also, check out this photo:

 

The Color Guard is armed with an M4... with some sort of optic sight attached...

Also wondering if the Indians will have an opportunity to have a meet and greet with the local  Indian community.

*JBLM=Joint Base Lewis-McChord, FKA Ft Lewis and McChord AFB, the local example of the fad to merge certain administrative and logistic functions of military installations that are in close proximity. I don't have a problem with that, but the naming convention is ugly and cumbersome.

More on the Cascadia Fault

Route Fifty - A Pacific Northwest Megaquake Will Test Government Response in Ways Katrina Never Did

While this article covers a lot of familiar ground, it also has some interesting new data, and a somewhat unique perspective.

I linked The Earthquake That Will Devastate the Pacific Northwest - The New Yorker when it was published; here is a follow-up: How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes - The New Yorker. This one explains the dangers in more scientific terms, without  getting so technical that you need a PhD in Geology to explain it.

Also, note this key quote:

“You’re not overdue for an earthquake until you’re three standard deviations beyond the mean”—which, in the case of the full-margin Cascadia earthquake, means eight hundred years from now. (In the case of the “smaller” Cascadia earthquake, the magnitude 8.0 to 8.6 that would affect only the southern part of the zone, we’re currently one standard deviation beyond the mean.) That doesn’t mean that the quake won’t happen tomorrow; it just means we are not “overdue” in any meaningful sense. The odds I cite in the story are correct: there is a thirty-per-cent chance of the M8.0–8.6 Cascadia earthquake and a ten-per-cent chance of the M8.7–9.2 earthquake in the next fifty years.

And here is an OpEd from a recent Seatle Times about those two articles above: When disasters strike, poor, minority communities face greatest risks | The Seattle Times

Author is a social justice warrior scientist who can't help but see natural disasters in terms of people. Which is good. To a point. When you start denying that there is any such thing as a natural disaster, because the natural elements (wind, water, plate tectonics. etc.)  "interact with social environments to produce social outcomes", I think you're missing the point about preparedness.

For example, she bemoans the advice to bolt your home to it's foundation, because poor people live in apartments or rent, or own a home but can barely afford to live in Seattle, let alone make seismic upgrades.

Anyway. Related: Three Years After Japan’s Tsunami - The New Yorker

Umm... Yay?

Actually, yes, as long as it doesn't go too far...


Wind Advisory
Statement as of 2:29 PM PDT on August 28, 2015

... Wind Advisory in effect from 11 am to 5 PM PDT Saturday...

The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a Wind Advisory... which is in effect from 11 am to 5 PM PDT Saturday.

* Timing... midday through Saturday afternoon.

* Winds... south wind 15 to 30 mph with gusts to 45 mph.

* Impacts... downed limbs and local power outages.

Precautionary/preparedness actions...

A Wind Advisory means that winds of 35 mph are expected. Winds this strong can make driving difficult... especially for high profile vehicles. Use extra caution.


Special Statement
Statement as of 6:02 AM PDT on August 28, 2015

... A strong Pacific storm could bring strong winds and locally heavy rain to western Washington on Saturday...

A much stronger system will impact the region on Saturday. This system has the potential to bring winds of 20 to 35 mph with gusts of 45 to 50 mph to parts of the coast... northwest interior... and I-5 corridor. Winds this strong usually occur in fall and winter. Thus... this wind event could create more problems due to the deciduous trees still having their leaves. This will make the branches more prone to snapping in strong winds. In addition to the possibility of downed tree limbs... the gusty winds could cause local power outages.

Rain will be locally heavy at times on Saturday. Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches are forecast for the coast and in the mountains... with a half to one inch elsewhere... during the 24 hour period ending at 5 am PDT Sunday. This amount of rain will likely end or help reduce the size of any ongoing wildfires.

In addition to the wind and rain... temperatures will be below normal on Saturday. Highs are forecast to be mainly in the mid to upper 60s across The Lowlands.

Those planning outdoor activities in the mountains in particular this weekend should pay close attention to the latest forecasts from the National Weather Service.

Www.Weather.Gov/Seattle

60 Years Ago Today

Tex Johnson bet Boeing's farm by doing not one, but two, barrel rolls in the prototype 707.

Almost cost him his job, but the aviation world was never the same.

Source: 60 years ago: The famous Boeing 707 prototype barrel roll over Lake Washington | The Seattle Times
(If the attenpt at embedding the video fails, it's there.)

A photo from same source, halfway through one of the death-, industry-, and career-defying stunts:

Speaking of Cascadia...

As I was in a two-month old post, here.

The New Yorker has just published an article about a Cascadia Subduction Zone quake in The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle - The New Yorker.

Note that the title of the article on the page is "The Really Big One", not "ZOMG THEY'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!11!"

OTOH, that may be what it takes to get anyone in the Center of the Universe to acknowledge that maybe bad things do happen outside of their little urban paradise. (Note that the author manages to work Hurricane Sandy in, even though it was a minor inconvenience to most denizens of the Eastern Megalopolis.)

Not a lot of science there. Vivid imagery, dumbed down so you can peruse it over your morning bagel or on the subway.

Still, if you need to explain to your family elsewhere why you think it's a good idea to maintain a month's supply of food, water, etc., it's not a bad article.

OTOH, if your family is the type that won't leave you alone until you return to the safety of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, you might want to steer clear...