Everyone else at work yesterday was making grand plans for today in their hope that the predicted snowfall would cause the federal government to close today. I was much more cautious, noting that the predicted accummulation of 1 to 3 inches wasn’t likely to shut down the government, just make the commute even longer and more difficult than usual for most.

Still, a childlike part of me was full of a gleeful hope as well that the predictions would turn out to be wrong and that we’d see half a foot or more, giving me a holiday from the office drudgery.

And the predictions were wrong. Unfortunately, they just were wrong in the other direction: by dawn this morning, not only wasn’t there an inch or more of snow, there wasn’t even a single flake to be seen near my home, either in the air or on the ground. And the National Weather Service had replaced its prediction of snow with just a wind-chill advisory, and even that paling in comparison (though thankfully so) to the arctic-like temperatures across New England.