Snow finally falls around Ballard

7:45 a.m. update: It’s snowing steadily again, and the morning commute is a big mess (520 is shut down, 405 is stopped, I-5 is a sheet of ice.) Here in Ballard, traffic is moving very slowly but safely so far along the routes that SDOT has sanded and de-iced. We drove around and snapped some photos.

Market St. over Phinney Ridge. Cars are making it over the top, but slowly.

15th Ave. at 85th St.

65th St. is a different story. While drivers are able to navigate the lower portion, the upper stretch from 3rd Ave up Phinney Ridge is treacherous, and we haven’t seen any cars attempt to make it up the hill.

And any of the side streets are very slick with packed snow, especially in East Ballard, Sunset Hill and Crown Hill. This is 83rd and 14th. On several occasions, we’ve seen drivers run red lights because they’re afraid they can’t stop in time. And others have done a little slipping and sliding as they turn, even on the sanded routes. So if you have to drive, please be very careful out there. For reference, here are the SDOT’s priority routes for plowing, de-icing and sanding (the dotted lines represent “secondary routes”):

And you can take a look at Aurora Ave. on the DOT cameras here. Seattle Public Schools have canceled for the day. Metro buses are chained up, but running late (check the changes here), and a handful few of them are stuck in various places throughout the city. Microsoft’s Connector buses are canceled. Snow totals are expected to reach 1 to 3 inches (or maybe more as it keeps snowing here), depending how many bands of precipitation move through by the time the snow tapers off in the early afternoon hours.