A blast of wintry weather has been making news all over Northeastern Oregon for the last couple of weeks, leaving its marks in the mountains of the region (a good thing) and in the memories of motorists who followed errant GPS instructions from their phones and got stuck on area roads. (Not such a good thing.)

If you haven’t yet, take the time to read Jayson Jacoby’s story about how the relatively early snowfall has cheered both irrigators and fans of winter recreation. Jacoby, the editor of the Baker City Herald, often writes about subjects that are important throughout Eastern Oregon, and this one certainly qualifies.

But the weather news hasn’t been all good: The snowfall — blended with the high winds that raced through the region earlier this week — led, as you might expect, to the temporary closure of Interstate 84 and other roads throughout the region.

Drivers who were too impatient to hunker down and wait  out the closures (and let’s be honest here — if you’re driving in Eastern Oregon during the winter months, you should always be prepared to hunker down to wait out a road closure) turned to their handy cellphones to find ways around the closures.

Their cellphones let them down.

And that’s how about 20 vehicles got stranded on a snowy (and, as it turned out, virtually impassable) gravel road outside Summerville on Wednesday evening. Search and rescue volunteers had to be summoned to free the stranded souls. (The volunteers had help from Union County Public Works.)

Reporter Isabella Crowley has all the details of this incident in this story. It’s a timely reminder about how your margin of error when driving in the winter can be pretty narrow, so be prepared. 

As for your GPS, blind reliance on it is a mistake, as hundreds of drivers find out for themselves every winter. If you’re following the directions from your phone, and the road is getting narrower and and the night is drawing closer and — are those wolves surrounding the car? — it might be time to turn the map app off and turn around. 

And here’s my weekly reminder: 

Even though the printed edition of the East Oregonian that you receive each week includes the best stories from the Observer, it doesn’t have nearly enough room in its pages for all of them. And our stories regularly appear on our website well before they’re printed in the East Oregonian.

Here’s what that means to you: To get our full news report, you need to keep an eye on our website, lagrandeobserver.com. I try to post fresh content on the website every day, although I do get to take a day off from time to time.

So, right now, you can find a big batch of news on the website that hasn’t yet been printed in the East Oregonian, including these stories:

• 10th Judicial District Judge Wes Williams has resigned from his post, a couple of months ahead of schedule. Williams lost his bid for a second term to Jared Boyd in the May primary, and now is returning to private practice.

• Northeastern Oregon schools are making progress on a couple of key metrics: The number of students who regularly attend classes and the percentage of ninth-graders who are on track to graduate in four years. How did Union County schools fare? This story has the answers. 

Those local stories are posted right now on our website, lagrandeobserver.com.

If your news interests extend to Eastern Oregon, here’s another reminder: As a subscriber to the Observer, you have free access to five other websites that cover the region: the Wallowa County Chieftain, the East Oregonian, the Hermiston Herald, the Baker City Herald and the Blue Mountain Eagle in John Day.

To access those other Eastern Oregon websites:

• Simply register your account on every site you wish to read with the same email address and password you currently use.

• Once you’ve registered, enter your username and password to enjoy the full range of content on that news site.

• You should not have to login again unless you log out, clear history or experience software updates.

• Save your password when prompted by your browser and if you are inadvertently logged out, your browser can fill in your login and password for you. (Only use this option on your personal digital devices.)

To view the latest e-Editions, be sure to register your account and sign in to www.eastoregonian.com.

Sign up for e-newsletters from each website by going to the “Email lists” link on your account dashboard for each site.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact us at 800-781-3214.

If you have comments, questions or story ideas for the Observer, send an email to editor@lagrandeobserver.com. It may take me a few days to get back to you, but I try to answer all the emails I receive.

If you have questions about the East Oregonian’s printed edition, or want to pass along a story idea, send an email to this address: editor@eastoregonian.com. 

And, of course, thank you to all of our subscribers. We simply would be unable to do this vital work without your support.

Mike McInally is the associate editor of the La Grande Observer and the editor of the Wallowa County Chieftain.