I hate when they panic like this.

Maybe I'm remembering my childhood incorrectly, or maybe it was a function of where I used to live, but I recall that when the weathermen said "Winter Storm Warning," that was it. Hunker down, bring some dry firewood inside, make sure that there's enough food in the house to last four or five days and get comfy, because it was going to be bad. In 1996, during the blizzard that January, we didn't see a snow plow for three days. The storm had been preceded by warnings of lots of snowfall and the Winter Storm Warning. Many other times, the Winter Storm Warning was something to be respected with reverence and awe.

Not in Washington. Down here, they throw around that moniker like it was... er, well something else that didn't hold much value. Case in point: today, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, otherwise known as the full measure of this particular Winter Storm that we were Warned about. All 3 inches of it. This picture was taken at around 2:30 today, in the very dark heart of its fury. Well, in its sort of grayish, tepid fury at any rate. This was not a storm they needed to warn us about. And I know the argument... if they hadn't Warned us, it would have been a blizzard, better to be safe than sorry, etc etc. It just seems like forecasters used to have better intuition about winter storms back in the day. Now, they rely on model after model after model, many of which contradict each other, and none of which can provide any real answer as to what the weather's gonna do.

It's just annoying that I get myself so psyched up for a big storm, when they promise 5 to 10 inches of snow, and we instead get what amounts to a nuicance. Arg.