And the snow keeps on coming ...
Many resort to other forms of transportation
By Venice Buhain | The Olympian
• Published December 21, 2008
OLYMPIA – South Sound commuters could be paralyzed by additional snow today, after weekend snow storms brought more than a foot in some areas. Two feet could be on the ground before it's all over.
What's closed
Here are weather-related closures and delays for today announced as of Sunday night.
• The Thurston County Courthouse and all county general government offices will be closed today. This includes services at the courthouse, Public Health and Social Services, Heritage Court, Family and Juvenile Court, Superior Court, and District Court.
• The Thurston County Waste and Recovery Center on Hogum Bay Road Northeast and all county satellite drop box sites will be closed today.
• The Evergreen State College's Olympia campus is closed.
• South Puget Sound Community College's Olympia campus and Hawks Prairie Center are closed to students, employees and visitors today. The winter tuition due date will be delayed to Dec. 29.
• Workshifts at McChord Air Force Base will operate on a two-hour delay today for non-mission essential staff members.
• The Valley Athletic Club will open at noon today. Go to www.valleyac.com or call 360-352-4300 before heading down to the club.
• A memorial service for Jim Dayton of Tumwater scheduled for 1 p.m. today at Mills & Mills Funeral Home in Tumwater will be rescheduled for January.
• The North Thurston, Olympia and Tumwater school districts are closed for winter break until Jan. 5.
Fortunately, some commuters won't have to make the commute, as the number of workplaces shutting down or delaying their opening times for Monday started piling up Sunday night. Among them: Thurston County offices, The Evergreen State College and South Puget Sound Community College are closed today.
Meanwhile, many travelers eager to get home for the holidays were stymied as only two of the three runways at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport were operating, and airlines canceled scores of flights Sunday. Alaska and Horizon airlines suspended all service Sunday afternoon.
Airlines urged passengers to rebook flights online from their homes, rather than clog the airport's ticket counters.
More snow forecast
For those staying put, most of South Sound should see an additional 3 to 7 inches of snow today, weather service meteorologist Jay Albrecht said Sunday night. However, in Lewis County and possibly southern Thurston County, another system could add 4 to 9 inches of snow, he said.
Those would be in addition to the 4 to 6 inches of snow that was expected to fall on South Sound by midnight Sunday — and the 6 to 8 inches of snow brought in by an overnight snowstorm on Saturday.
Today's high temperatures are expected to be just above freezing, according to the National Weather Service, which isn't necessarily good news.
"Olympia will get up to 35 degrees. Some of that stuff could start melting off, but whatever moisture there is from that will freeze overnight," said National Weather Service meteorologist Johnny Burg.
However, by the late morning of Christmas Eve, the snow is expected to turn into rain, according to the weather service.
The amount of snow and its staying power kept people shaking their heads over the weekend.
"Is it unusual? Yes. Unprecedented? No," Albrecht said, citing long periods of snow in the winters of 1968-69 and 1949-50.
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