Portland - A good day to stay inside

Most Decembers in Portland, Oregon we get a lot of rain - usually around six inches or more. We haven't gotten anywhere near that much this year, plus for the past week the temperature has mostly been around freezing, mostly below that. We've had snow several times since Sunday morning (Dec. 14), although it warmed up at one point and most of that disappeared.

It was pretty cold earlier in the week, and today it's gotten just as cold and may get even colder. To top it all off, it began snowing steadily this morning. It's not those light, big fluffy flakes, either. It's those small ones that indicate a pretty serious storm. The temperature was just above freezing around dawn, but it's been falling since then. The first picture shows what my view is of the parking lot when there's not a gust of wind blowing snow around, while the second one shows what it's like with a gust. The wind is coming out of the Columbia Gorge, which usually means it's drawing on some really cold air from the other side of the Cascades.

The normal high temperature for today is 45F. As you can see from my thermometer, it's considerably colder than that. It's about as cold as I've seen it since I moved here. The temperature inside is pretty comfortable, and I don't even have my heat on. That's a good thing because it's electric. The apartment downstairs is vacant, and I think the manager turned up the heat in it so the pipes won't freeze. When I put my hand flat on the linoleum in the dining area I use as my computer space, the floor is not cold at all. Before this cold spell the temperature in this apartment, without the heat on, would get down close to 60F, and that was with outside temperatures in the 30s and 40s. If it warms up, maybe the manager will forget to dial back the heat downstairs. I certainly don't mind paying less for electricity.