Mother Nature flips a switch, as C.O. calendar turns from warm October to snowy start to November
(Update: Adding video, Pilot Butte road closed, studded tire season, city sanders out, hardware store stocked)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- The turn of the calendar flipped a weather switch as well for many Central Oregonians, as November arrived with heavy, wet snow falling over a wide area after a mostly warm and dry October.
A weather spotter reported two inches of snow in six hours on Bend's westside as heavy rain turned to steady snowfall before daybreak.
At noon Tuesday, official observation spots reported light snow at the Bend, Redmond and Prineville airports, with some fog in Redmond as well. It was raining and 37 degrees at Madras Airport and light snow also was falling in Sunriver.
The road to the summit of Pilot Butte was closed Tuesday after a car slid into a retaining wall around noon. State parks officials will decide when the road closes for the season, usually around mid-November.
Tuesday also happened to be the start of Oregon's studded tire season, which ends next March 31.
The city of Bend had seven sanders out Tuesday morning, focusing on roundabouts and intersections. Workers said it was too wet to apply the anti-icer magnesium chloride, which is a pre-treatment. They also took advantage of the first wet snow of the season to train new staff on the larger trucks.
While the first snow in town caught some people by surprise, places like Ace Hardware on Third Street were prepared, wasting no time putting out shovels and ice melt of various types, including pet-friendly options
"We have truckloads of ice melt at our storage facility in Sunriver," said Operating Manager Matt Bangs. We've got thousands of snow shovels, so we're pretty much ready for any snow event."
It's also the time many consider buying a snow blower, and they have both electric and gas-powered options in stock.
By the way, it was definitely a warm October - according to the National Weather Service, Bend reached a maximum high temperatures 85 degrees, five degrees above normal, two degrees shy of the month's record and the warmest October high in a dozen years.
