blizzards and ice storms?

Question

what is and how does an ice storm form?
what is and how does a blizzard form?
how do both blizzards and ice storms impact the environment and communities of oregon or the united states?
where have either or both occurred most recently and what were the consequences?

Answer 1

what is and how does an ice storm form?
When rain falls onto cold surfaces and freezes on contact. The result being that roads, buildings, power lines, trees, vehicles etc become encased in ice.

what is and how does a blizzard form?
Snow blown by strong winds - more specifically when the winds exceed 40kmh (25mph), there is snowfall and visibility is reduced to less than 1000 metres. There are different definitions, some state windspeeds in excess of 55kmh or that visibility if 500m or less.

Rain and snow forms as part of the precipitation cycle - water evapourates from seas and oceans, cools as it rises, condenses into water droplets and falls as rain or snow depending on temperature.

how do both blizzards and ice storms impact the environment and communities of oregon or the united states?
Don't know specifics for Oregon but if you follow the links below it will give you and idea.

where have either or both occurred most recently and what were the consequences?

A severe ice strom struck Canada in 1998, see the links for more...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Ice_Storm
http://canadaonline.about.com/cs/weather/p/icestorm.htm
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/media/icestorm98/icestorm98_the_worst_e.cfm

Blizzards occur all over the place whenever it's cold and windy enough: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard

Answer 2

I live in a tropical climate so I don't have to deal with that.