sqwabb

[caption id="attachment_8776" align="alignnone" width="497"] A slippery slope. Alder Street at 8th Avenue, looking north.[/caption]

No matter how impressively a Vancouver snowstorm begins, it always ends badly.

The day after can be something of a letdown; reality kick in -- grimy, dirty, slippery, slushy reality. The truth is snow has no business in a city; it just gets in the way.

Vancouver winter after dark

[caption id="attachment_8781" align="alignnone" width="497"] Snow-blown. In our defence, Vancouverites don't get a lot of practice.[/caption]

But the snow is really pretty at first -- magical even -- the falling snowflakes, the perfect blankets of whiteness, the hush that seems to fall over everything. Nice!

The wonder of a fresh snowfall continues through the first evening and well into the city night, which is nothing like real night.

[caption id="attachment_8782" align="alignnone" width="497"] Wipe that leaf off your face! The longer you look at it the better it looks.[/caption]

Street lights and house lights and traffic lights hold any real darkness at bay; everything is twilight, long shadows and sharp specular highlights -- perfect for snow -- perfectly spooky and memorable.

Where's this stuff when we need it on Halloween?

Lucky for us the temperature stayed above zero over night; no black ice in the morning -- that stuff is really scary.

[caption id="attachment_8783" align="alignnone" width="497"] Pretty slushy. In a few hours all this will just be getting underfoot.[/caption]