Why do Oregonians lost their Minds for snow.

[Classy Viking]

Now I've lived in the same 5 mile area here in Beaverton, all my life, yet I have never understood why my fellow Oregonites **** their pants when in snows. Now maybe it's because my father came from the mid west. Maybe I just that cynical, but still the question remains.

Why do your mind at the snow?

[oslapedo]

Snow is fun and innocent. Snowball fights, snow angels, snow men, oh yeah.

[Saki-the-cat]

I actually like the snow a lot, and i mean A LOT. It's much better than rain i think and it makes it actually seem less cold out for some reason, plus it's fun to walk around in. I guess the only problem with it though is that it's hard to get places when it snows a lot, the only problem with THAT is is that it hardly ever snows enough to be a real problem and even the slightest bit of snow makes people flip out.

[kit2kit]

It doesn't snow as often here as it does in other places. We mostly get rain. and when it does snow its hasnt been very much.
The past 2 years we've been lucky/out of the ordinary to get as much snow as we did.

[Washougal_Otaku]

Snow is fun and innocent.

LIES!  LIES!!!  LIES!!!

*sigh*

You're Oregonians, not Oregonites.  That is sad.

As for snow, it ruins plans (sometimes even if your plans involve snow) and they make bad drivers drive even worse.

[Darknight2433]

Snow is too good!

ICE is bad.

[superjaz]

if it snows so badly my relief coworker can' make it then I can't go home

[Gryffinclaw Princess]

I'm sure it is nothing like in South Carolina.
At the first sign of a single snowflake, people rush to Bilo and buy out all the milk and bread because they are afraid that something bad is going to happen. It was insane when it snowed there.

[sandrobotticelli]

You're Oregonians, not Oregonites.  That is sad.

Oregonites just makes us sound like minerals.

Anyway, I don't particularly like the snow. I only like it when I get to miss school which means more time for studying and/or sleeping in. It's the worst thing in the world when you have to drive somewhere.

Wait, that's a lie, icy rain is worse...

[Washougal_Otaku]

Wait, that's a lie, icy rain is worse...

That, I will not argue with...

[jaqua]

Oregonians cannot into the snow, it is fact of life.

[DancingTofu]

The same reason why we freak out when it suns: because it's not cloudy or rainy.

[Kimiski]

Snow is FUN!! And rare in Oregon, especially if it sticks and people can actually go out in it. It's peaceful, and relaxing as well.
And for everyone still in school... it closes schools if there's just enough of it, because it's rare in Oregon so the state doesn't have the equipment to make sure schools/roads stay open like they do in the mid-west where it is a common occurrence and therefore makes sense to spend lots of money on equipment to deal with snow.

[Griff_the_dragoon]

It is too cold I dont like it

[superjaz]

Should specify
I lived in eastern oregon for a few years, ontario, and it snowed a lot knee deep, and it was no big deal, and sadly school was never canceled

[Washougal_Otaku]

The town of Washougal, WA, has half of its school district up in the mountains.  So whenever it got even the slightest bit snowy in the main town (sometimes not even a trace of it), school'd be cancelled on account of the mountain kids; I hated it).

[superjaz]

I swear I would be the only person walking to school in the snow and the water driping from my nose would freze, and then I would catch the worst colds

[flyinvee11]

I'm not Oregonian. When I see snow, I think, "Sweet! Reckless driving without reckless driving tickets!!!"

[Kimiski]

Should specify
I lived in eastern oregon for a few years, ontario, and it snowed a lot knee deep, and it was no big deal, and sadly school was never canceled

Because they're used to it
If I lived in Utah and came here I'd wonder why everyone made such a big deal and be shocked school was cancelled on the account of less than one inch of snow too but... we're not used to it. Which makes it special.

[Cyprus]

Snow isn't rare in Oregon at all lol...only in specific parts. In Central Oregon, it is a very common occurance...I have even seen it snow here in July, no joke. I hate it because it's cold & it makes people stupid when they drive. They don't seem to understand the idea of driving carefully when the weather is bad...it only seems to make them drive faster & stupider. Not to mention, in order to travel upstate & beyond to visit family or attend events, we have to worry about lining Les Schwabs pockets with gold in order to avoid tickets from state police...oh ya, & being turned around to go home mid-trip. You can have all the snow you want...I'll let you take ours!

[DancingTofu]

Used to it has nothing to do with anything.  It's a matter of prepared for it; it's a matter of not being logistically prepared for it.  The city of Portland has very few snow plows and even fewer trained and capable snow plow operators.  The roads are also infrequently maintained and not suited for plowing.  Major commuting routes like the Hawthorne and Morrison bridges can become unusable during a blizzard due to ice build-up on the steel grid decks.  Additionally, not everyone has tire chains and very few people know how to properly put them on.  Even less people actually know how to drive with chains.  Furthermore, the Portland area is extremely foggy and very windy for an inland city due to the Columbia Gorge.  An inch of snow in the morning isn't a big deal at 2pm, but by 6pm it's thawed and refrozen as a quarter inch of slick ice.

So I suppose that's why people in the Portland area tend to get a little exuberant when it snows.

[jaqua]

We discovered today that the real reason Portlanders especially can't function around snow is because everyone is pressing their face against the nearest glass surface and watching it in utter rapture. Hence, car crashes.

[babysugarbear28]

thank you tofu your answer sums it up to be honest... and for the valley getting snow is strange to us, in my 18 years in the eugene area i can only remember getting snow maybe 5 times.. it just doesn't happen often and when it does it doesn't usually stick.

[superjaz]

icy rain on top of snow that's the worst ... or snow on top of icy rain...either way bad combo

[@random]

We discovered today that the real reason Portlanders especially can't function around snow is because everyone is pressing their face against the nearest glass surface and watching it in utter rapture. Hence, car crashes.

This is even more funny because it's pretty believable. 

"Wow, what are those white things flying toward the windshield? That's so cool!"
*splortch*

[MiriaRose]

I loathe snow.

[Saki-the-cat]

Only about six people showed up at the anime club i went to tonight because they thought it was too icey outside D:

[kylite]

snow is absolutely beautiful to behold. and after a full night of the stuff stepping outside and hearing the deafening silence is simply wonderful.

That said.... its COLD! MISERABLY COLD! and it hurts to breath when im out in the white flyffy stuff.

so while it has its nice points, I vote snows gotta go

[jaybug]

I love snow. It beats horizontal rain any day! I really hate those kind of days.

I have studded tires on my front wheel drive Buick. No problemo muchacho. Too bad all those other idiots driving around, are driving around. No studs, no chains, no brains! What fun! Pick-ups with no weight in the back lining the freeway ditches. Too many people unprepared, again.

I was going to drive my wife to work, as I had furlough days last week. We got on to the freeway, and were hoping for the next exit for about 10 minutes to get off. Too many morons behind the wheel. And a nice snow snarl to boot. sigh We got off, and she decided to call in a snow day at work.

Me, had I not had furlough days, I would have had to go to work, hence the studded tires. I don't show up for snow, I get fired. It's in the contract.

[Prinz Eugen]

Because the greenie-weenies banned road salt, so even a little freezing rain on the east side makes most light little cars lose traction. (Also rough on pickups with the bed empty.)

I grew up in New England and learned winter driving there and in Quebec.
You could know there was no school tomorrow when on a clear afternoon home from school, the trucks would be out throwing down salt BEFORE a storm.
The trick was the SIZE of the salt. If you had a north-east wind and the cubes were about the size of small gaming dice, then you had a night off from math homework...

[jaybug]

Dude; we never had road salt. We have plenty of volcanoes to give us cinders for traction. That and like hell if we could ever afford to replace our cars every two years like they do back east. Not what with the prices for food, and housing that they have always been. Cinders we could get in state, salt had to be imported from Utah, way back east you know.

[Prinz Eugen]

I'm not Oregonian. When I see snow, I think, "Sweet! Reckless driving without reckless driving tickets!!!"

Yes: otherwise known as "NOW the speed limits MAKE SENSE."

[Prinz Eugen]

Dude; we never had road salt. We have plenty of volcanoes to give us cinders for traction. That and like hell if we could ever afford to replace our cars every two years like they do back east. Not what with the prices for food, and housing that they have always been. Cinders we could get in state, salt had to be imported from Utah, way back east you know.

The trick here is freezing point depression - how you use rock salt and common ice to hold temperatures below 32F when making ice cream, or in this case to get ice to turn to liquid (salt water, you're right) even at temperatures below 32F. You get freezing rain and glaze coatings of ice on stuff OFF the road, but the roads themselves are clear, WET (with salt water) and safe to drive on at speed. The corrosion was why you bought a heavy American beater-mobile that would only start showing rust after a good 5 years, and not a cheap Japanese car that would rust in about 2.
Or you keep your nice car off the road till May, and drive the dented beater in the winter. Just like having the second set of skis you call 'rock skis' for the tail end of the season when hopping patches of "thin cover." (Scrapey-sparks off your edges possible.)

People also get salt rings in their shoe leather while walking outside. We used to crack up at the show Cheers because on their Christmas specials no one with boots on would have those tell-tale white rings up by their ankles. Yes that stuff is hell on shoe leather too.

[jaybug]

Dude, I went to boot camp in Great Lakes, Il. in the winter. I know all about road salt, and salted boot leather. Hence my no damn salt on our roads stance here. Every damn car over two years old had rust holes at door bottoms, and where road slush collects. And as it was the rust belt, the cars were American not Japanese. Japanese cars being a more west coast thing.

I really don't want to have to afford replacement used cars and new work boots yearly. If I have to, I am not getting my shoes from Scappoose, nor buying American cars.

Japan doesn't use road salt, they have lots of volcanoes too. Volcanic cinders don't melt. It provides traction longer. Unless you ride a motorcycle after the snow has recently melted, and before the cars have thrown it to the side of the road. Man, that can be scary. But January is the most amazing time to go for a motorcycle ride around here. Well, on those cold but crystal clear blue sunny days it is. Snow capped Cascades, vistas for miles.

[Prinz Eugen]

Japan doesn't use road salt,

Correct. In Niigata prefecture for example they use WATER from zillions of nozzles placed at the center (crown) of the roadway. They are also designed to act as don't-cross-the-median bumps with little reflectors. Of course, this only works above freezing and in times of year when humidity is low.

Different cultures do different things in different climates. Also, some people may have chosen to replace cars more often in exchange for being able to have wet-road traction, as opposed to sand over snow traction, for more hours of the year. What works in the Cascades may not work off the coast of Maine (wet, soggy slushy show that builds up to 8" and then the top 1/2" freezes into a crust, for instance.) Again, the desired effect wasn't just traction, but chemical removal of many inches of snow and leaving a residual on the road so that flakes from the NEXT storm would turn to water for a little while longer before accumulating.

Yes it did turn many cars into prematurely-aged rust buckets - I remember pushing my finger through the floorboards of my uncle's old 220D Benz - the steel had corroded just like flaky croissant. We used the hole to drop M80s out of when passing through tunnels - they sounded AWEsome...
It was also hell on mufflers (heat accelerates corrosion) and muffler brackets. Hey but different people choose different trade-offs in different places; here the choice is body panels that last longer, plus enviro-weenie concerns in exchange for more 'stupid' accidents and more chipped windshields. Including a higher human toll in the form of injuries to drivers, passangers, and maybe a 5-year-old in a crosswalk who gets bumped off like a flippered pinball because someone in a Suburb-a-saur SUV couldn't stop in time.

Maybe the Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club take kickbacks form the body shops for all the extra work they get? <-Joke

[thesirensings]

I spend my childhood in Hawaii and California. Snow was a rarity. Thus, it is exciting.