I reacted weirdly, earlier.

Portland's having snow, and it's forecast to get heavier around 6:00 local time and keep falling into the night. A couple of hours ago, at its lightest in my part of SE, the snow was tiny, looking almost particulate.

I started to imagine it was ash.

Our region had the Eagle Creek Fire in early September, caused by a teenage boy who'd stupidly played with fireworks in a very dry part of the Columbia River Gorge, and causing a huge amount of damage. (The boy was found, and is now assigned to do community service.) Portland got that ash. Parts of the eastern metro area were put under a fire watch due to a chance that fire could jump the Sandy River and hit our eastern suburbs. That fire, and the leaden, reddish skies Portland got as a result, hit me hard. Hit a lot of us Portlanders hard.

Portlanders have already had experience with plenty of ash (hello, Mt. St. Helens), so it wasn't a stretch for me to picture ashes today. But I told myself "If the ash were as thick as even this light snow is, any fires would be much closer. Also, this will melt."

So I think what I'm saying is, it could be worse and I sincerely hope it doesn't get worse.