People like to criticize the northwest whenever we get any amount of snow accumulation. We rarely see more than 2-3″ of snow, and yet it tends to shut cities down for days when it happens.
Why?
While the northwest doesn’t often see the volume of snow as places like Minneapolis, Chicago, or Boston, it’s dealing with two factors that multiply the danger of a couple inches of snow.
Our roads are usually above freezing, so the snow that does stick melts to slush, and then freezes overnight. Roads turn into literal sheets of ice. Combine that with hills, and you start to see why 2″ of snow in the northwest is like 2′ elsewhere.
Usually one number doesn’t tell the whole story.