Escape cold Seattle; go skiing at Crystal Mountain

If you’ve been thinking ‘man, it’s cold outside,’ it’s not just in your head.

It really is that cold.

According to Josh Smith, with the National Weather Service, Seattle and Portland tied for the ‘coldest major cities’ in the lower 48 states. Temperatures have been hovering in the 40’s and low 50’s this week.

The good news, if you’re a lover of snow sports, is you can still find snow in the mountains. In fact, Crystal Mountain is open every weekend until June 16. Imagine hitting the slopes in a T-shirt over Memorial Day Weekend.

Crystal received six inches of new snow overnight and the summit has 48″. Smith says Snoqualmie Pass received a trace of snow and Stevens Pass got four inches.

If your fingers ache and you’re tired of damp socks, look to southern Arizona where temps are in the low 90’s.

“A couple weeks ago we were the warmest in the country. We were under an upper level ridge. We were tied with Phoenix for the warmest major city in the country,” says Smith.

In the Columbia River Gorge town of Bickleton, a freak snowstorm prompted schools to close their doors on Wednesday.

Ten to 12 inches fell overnight within a 5- or 6-mile radius in the community at an elevation of 3,000 feet, said school Superintendent Ric Palmer.

“You go down the hill and get out of it,” he said.

The heavy snow brought down tree branches on power lines, taking out electricity and phone service, Palmer said from home, where he was using generator power.

It was the lack of power at school rather than the snow that forced him to cancel classes. Still, it marked the first snow day of the school year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.