Odds and Ends of the Polar Express Kind and Other Things too

Oh yes it is cold. Here’s a shot of my weather app right around 12:30 today. That’s 12:30 in the afternoon not 12:30 in the morning.

Earlier in the day it was even colder. As I was walking from the subway to my office, I saw a guy walking toward me with a suit on and gloves. No coat, no hat, no sweater, no scarf. Nothing except the gloves. I wonder what this guy’s mother would say about this.

Metro has been a mess of course because of this. In the cold weather more people are riding it. There are also more problems. Cracked rails. Problems with doors closing. It means longer ride times. It means trains bursting at the seams. Usually on my ride to work after Farragut North the train empties out. Or at least a significant number of people get off. But that hasn’t happened the past couple of days. I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to find a seat for the ride to Bethesda.

And it seems DC is in for a fun Saturday:

A potent, moist low pressure system is developing over Texas on Friday, forecast to track northeast and bring a large swath of snow and wintry mix along with it. Forecast models are in agreement that the storm will bring accumulating snow to the D.C. area Saturday before changing to a wintry mix and then finally to rain late Saturday night.

Timing: Precipitation will start as snow, beginning mid-morning in the far northwest suburbs and working its way southeast across the area. The Beltway should expect precipitation to begin somewhere between the late morning and the early afternoon. While snow is expected through at least the mid-afternoon, sleet – and even brief periods of freezing rain – could begin to mix in somewhere between the mid- to late afternoon hours in the southeast, working its way to the northwest. Precipitation eventually turns to all rain overnight for the entire area and will last into Sunday morning.

I'm going to the Newseum on Saturday to see a program on the Oscars. I hope I won't be sliding all the way back to the Metro when I leave.

This goes down as a strange thing indeed. I'm on the way to Metro to get to work and on the sidewalk is this Christmas tree. Yes an actual tree. At first I thought it might have been some clippings from a bush or something but it turns out it is an actual tree. I really have to wonder where it came from.

 
That's it from a very very cold Washington, DC. I'll keep you posted on how things progress this weekend.