In winter’s icy grasp

Motorists take advantage of a wide shoulder area to take chains off their vehicles Tuesday morning on I-5 near the 39th Street exit in Vancouver, Washington. December 23, 2008. (The Columbian/Troy Wayrynen)

Marcell Gareis tries to clear and thaw her car Monday morning in Vancouver. (Troy Wayrynen/The Columbian)

The heaviest snowfall in 58 years gripped Southwest Washington for a third day Monday. More than a foot of snow and ice prompted many businesses and government agencies to close, easing what would have been a dicey commute.

Forecasters are calling for another shot of snowfall overnight tonight.

State, county and city snow plows are working around the clock to keep roads passable on surfaces of compacted snow and ice. Crews planned to employ chemical de-icers and plows overnight Monday on major highways, raising the possibility of motorists finally glimpsing bare pavement today.

“We’re going to use this break in the weather to get as far as we can on those major routes,” said Melanie Coon, a spokeswoman for the Washington Department of Transportation.

After three days of sub-freezing weather, the National Weather Service indicated the temperature should reach into the mid-30s today. But forecasters predicted another storm from the Gulf of Alaska could deliver 1 to 3 inches of snow tonight to Vancouver, which already is experiencing its heaviest snowfall since January 1950.

That new snow is likely to stick to the icy-cold ground.

“It probably has some effect, but the more pertinent effect is we’ll be getting more cold air,” said Wanda Likens, a meteorologist with the weather service in Portland.

Vancouver will almost certainly experience a postcard-worthy white Christmas.

“I think people should get cameras and video and document history for future generations to look back at,” said Steve Pierce, a weather observer in Vancouver.

Forecasters say a warming trend will erode the snowpack by the weekend, offering relief for weather-weary motorists.

On Monday, at least, people seemed to be taking the transformed landscape in stride.

Shannon McDonald, 63, Vancouver, sat at a table in a bustling Starbucks in downtown Vancouver, two sheets of paper lined with poetry in front of him.

Snow binds people together and locks out the rest of the world, he said. Just like love.

“I thought, ‘This is the perfect way to express the insularity of love,’” he said. “People think they have the whole world to themselves. People feel other people have vanished. They have a fresh, utterly new world to themselves.”

McDonald had been working on a poem since he took a walk in the snow a few nights before.

“The world gets hush,” he said. “There is a sense of virginal-ness and freshness.”

“I’m still making notes on it,” he added.

Outside, a retired couple strolled through Esther Short Park.

“The nice thing is, we see some of our friends out walking,” said Trink Schurian, 56, as Ernie Schurian casually flipped a snowball in the air.

Twelve-year-old Shawnisha Jones-Fair and three friends said they were having a great time: after they’d helped a neighbor out of the snow, the grateful motorist had given each of them a buck, which the four kids used to buy jo-jo potatoes and crispy rice treats from a convenience store.

Next door to the Starbucks, hairdresser Melanie Palmquist was busy. She’d pulled in after a 90-minute commute from Amboy to find that several colleagues hadn’t shown up, but fully half of the appointments had.

Palmquist guessed that the storm’s timing is responsible.

“If the same thing happened in January or February, people would just stay home and everything would be fine,” she said. “People are venturing out because of Christmas.”