Trees, cheese and ocean breeze, wet is par for the course when you live in Tillamook County, Ore. The annual precipitation for this coastal region is around 90 inches a year.
Last week the region was blanketed with up to a foot of snow and the adverse weather forced multiple school closures in both Lincoln and Tillamook County. Downed trees closed several roads, as the Oregon Department of Transportation and local public work crews worked to remove those trees and other debris.
For many, the untypical freshly blanketed snow on the Oregon coast was pretty and allowed for an unusual snow day. However, it made a very long several days of choring for Oregon’s coastal dairy farmers.
In Beaver, Tom Seals, owner of Legendairy Farms, says they received 10 inches of snow, causing a power outage on their farm. Some of the pictures at their farm look picturesque, while others tell a different story. Winds and heavy wet snow caused the breezeway from the milking parlor to the freestall barn to collapse. Seals shares that no injuries occurred, and that insurance is handling the assessment.
“People are calling it a 50-year snow,” Seals says. “We haven’t seen snow like this since we’ve been here. We never see this accumulation at sea level. Our milk was picked up every day, but I had to help pull the milk truck into the driveway to get him through the snow and ice.”
Kate Lott, DVM, Director of Farm Engagement for Tillamook County Creamery Association, says Tillamook is no stranger to adverse weather events.
“We know how to handle floods, mudslides, trees and down powerlines and the occasional ice storm,” she says. “We are not, however, prepared for 13 inches of snow and then 20-degree weather for several days. Tillamook usually has brief snow or ice, with same-day melting, so we have very little in the way of plows or gravel trucks. This isn’t good for very hilly terrain and some of our farms are Up river valleys or have a hilly driveway. We also had dozens of trees down, across roads, but also on power lines so there were power outages in many parts of the county.”
Lott is happy to report that only 2% of Tillamook’s milk was dumped over four days. This was due to the hard work of their milk hauling partner, Zwald Transport, as well as many farmers who plowed their own driveways, in addition to roads, school parking lots and towed the milk trucks in and out of farms to keep things going.
“We had several barn roofs collapse, including one on milk cows but all cows were okay with only minor injuries,” she reports.
In Tillamook, dairy farmer Derrick Josi says he could have done without the wind.
Josi, along with his family, milks 800 Jersey cows and recently transitioned into a modern freestall barn and carrousel parlor set-up, shares thankfully no cows or people were injured when his old cow barn roof collapsed.
“The snow wasn’t horrible, it was the east wind that showed up causing snow drifts and icing. Alley scrapers don’t really like it evidently. It’s definitely not something we are used to,” he says. “We are not set up for this. Lots of things were learned in the new facility for the next time we have snow or ice. Milk pick up wasn’t an issue because of our location and our ability to clear the roads with our equipment.”
For more on weather, read:
- 7 Tips to Protect Farm Buildings from Heavy Snow Loads
- Rain Or Drought? What to Expect from the Weather Following the End of La Niña?
- 2023 Weather Outlook: Ready the Snowplow
