HEAD FOR THE HILLS-THE SNOW IS COMING!

Watch Falling Snow Sign (Photo credits: www.mysafetysign.com)

Yes, I'm being kind of sarcastic.  Maybe more than kind of sarcastic.

The St. Louis area is under a Winter Storm Warning for a storm that will hit us Thursday midday and end Thursday night.  I just saw a weatherman on TV call tomorrow "a really rotten Thursday".  Schools are closing for tomorrow, and it's only about 6:30 Wednesday night.  REALLY?

When you look at the official forecast map from the National Weather Service, it doesn't look like it's going to be quite the mess the TV people are warning us of.  And when I scan some of the geeked out raw weather data, it's not that much different than the photo below.

I'm not sure 1-3 inches of snow and sleet, which is what the NWS is still calling for, should create the panic in the minds of the TV weatherpeople and the citizenry of the St. Louis metropolitan area, but everyone seems to be freaking out in a big way.  If you're in a place like Kansas City and they're predicting 10 to 12 inches of snow, THEN you freak out.  1-3, not so much.

So the grocery stores are jammed, people are buying their milk, bread, and eggs so they can have french toast while they're snowbound, Sears sent me an e mail telling me it was going to snow and I should run right in and buy a snow blower, and my kids tell me there's no reason to do their homework because they KNOW they won't have school tomorrow.  UPDATE: My kids' school district is closing school tomorrow due to the threat of icy conditions in the afternoon.

Maybe it's my Chicago roots, maybe it's my cynicism that my friends who do the weather around here are blowing this up so they can seem really important and grow their ratings, or perhaps I'm just delusional and we'll all be paralyzed by the storm tomorrow.  Regardless, I'm still not buying it.

I'll be posting video updates on the storm throughout the day tomorrow. Check my Facebook page, my 15 second video updates on Tout, and other outposts on the Interwebz for updates.   Unless the storm completely immobilizes me and those around me.

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