looking like first Snow of the year Saturday night here

Pretty normal to me, just no extremes. Overnight freezes need clear skies for most people, and it hasn't been clear that often. By just about every metric except for overnight freezes at your house it's been normal. This beats temperature inversions, endless fog and fake cold. And it's only the 13th

Yes 100%. There isn't the resolution on those to see terrain features like the Gorge. If you're trying to give yourself some unjustified hopium from long range models, the important things to look for are just that the main features of the large scale pattern are generally in place. Cold anomalies in anywhere in the Northwest = good. The main thing to look for imo is that the cold air is in place over BC/Alberta. High heights over the North Pacific also = good. We really just want to see the cold air close enough that it could easily be tapped into with the right tweaks to the setup.

Do we have to go through why this isn't normal again?

I was a toddler then. I do recall my dad playfully hurling me into a snow pile, which I got stuck in. Lol. My favorite blizzard will always be 2/10/10. It only dropped 15” but the insane winds/whiteout conditions, in addition to the fact it came on the heels of snowmageddon/4+ feet over the previous 8 days, made it a once in a lifetime event (most likely). There is a direct correlation between the QBO and amplitude of the NPAC high, though.