Snowy weather ahead of Valentine’s Day delays flower deliveries in the City of Roses

Portland’s frigid and snowy weather is coinciding with one of the busiest holidays of the year for florists, forcing delayed deliveries and threatening a loss of sales.

But long-time Portland flower shop owners say this has all happened before.

“The very first Valentine’s Day I had as a business owner, it snowed,” said Lynne Pohrman, who purchased Portland Florist Shop 30 years ago. “So I learned from that: Don’t sweat the small stuff, just get through it.”

When a winter storm rolled in four years ago — also in February just ahead of Valentine’s Day — the Northeast Portland shop worked through it, pausing flower deliveries and resuming when it was safe to do so. Pohrman said customers were overall gracious about delayed Valentine’s arrangements, and she expects this year will be similar.

“It’s just a little bit more of a stressful situation,” Pohrman said. “But, sales wise, it all works out.”

Snow started falling in Portland Thursday morning with more expected overnight and into Valentine’s Day. State transportation officials warn that roads could be icy and dangerous, and are urging people to stay home through at least Friday at 10 a.m.

Related: Winter storm warnings underway in western Oregon; weather advisories east of the Cascades

Thanks to four-wheel drive vehicles and snow tires, Pohrman said her shop was able to get most of the 100 orders scheduled for Thursday to their destinations. But she said flowers ordered for delivery on Feb. 14 might not get dropped off until Saturday.

Holly Itami Springfels is the fourth-generation owner of Kern Park Flower Shoppe in Southeast Portland. She started making arrangements as soon as she saw Friday’s weather forecast.

“I called all my deliveries for Friday and moved them to Thursday with the goal of getting everything out before the city shut down at the first sight of snowflakes,” Itami Springfels said.

Even though she was able to plan ahead, she’s expecting the shop to lose sales. She says Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day are the two biggest holidays of the year for florists, and the decline in walk-in business due to the weather will be hard to make up.

“It’s a horrible hit,” Itami Springfels said.

Across the Willamette River, Jeff Day said his team at Old Town Florist will be at the shop on Valentine’s Day but won’t make deliveries anywhere they can’t drive to safely.

“Sales will be down considerably because of the weather,” Day, who owns the store with his wife, said. “But that’s just the way it goes.”

Day hopes to give his staff a rest over the weekend after a busy week preparing for Valentine’s Day. That means he’ll take his Jeep out on Saturday to make up missed deliveries.

“We were looking forward to having Saturday, Sunday off,” Day said, referring to him and his wife. “But we’re going to have to plow right through the weekend.”