Like Hoosier said, we want a ridge over Alaska. I once read someone describe the relationship between Alaska and the Midwest in winter as, "build the trough (over Alaska), the winter's off". As well as I understand it, if you have a trough over Alaska, the trough will push the weather coming across the Pacific to the south keeping it warm when it comes into North America. If you can get a ridge over Alaska, the weather coming over the Pacific will be forced to climb the ridge into the Arctic where it will cool before sliding down the other side of the ridge into the Midwest. There's a really good video on Youtube on the winters of 77 and 78 entitled "The Catastrophic Blizzards of 1977-78" that describes this phenomenon , I'll put the link at the end of this post. But I believe Chicago experienced 6 straight weeks below freezing in during Dec 76 and Jan 77 because a huge ridge built over Alaska.

These Dolphins suck in cold weather

I got laid off from my remote job in June and had to take a hybrid job that was based out of Bellevue. We just bought our house down here last year and my wife and I just had a kid so I did not have to many options at the time and had to take the first thing that came my way.

I am sorry you had to. That is really rough. I am hoping Tacoma attracts some big companies as we are close to Seattle. I got my fingers crossed Tacoma will at some point.

The windstorm was kind of boring, only reached 45mph. It did blow my fence down but it was cooked already. I miss the screaming westerly windstorms back when I used to live in Metchosin. Ill always remember hearing over 40 trees go down in our yard and windows flexing during the 2006 Hanukkah Eve windstorm.