Here's the forecast, according to our favorite weather folks over at Capital Weather Gang:

Strong winds continue for much of the day with gusts past 30 mph at times before diminishing late. Sunshine returns with highs probably near or a smidge above freezing in the low-and-mid 30s.

The forecast for later in the week—partly to mostly sunny Friday, Saturday, and into Sunday with high temperatures in the 30s—comes with two caveats. I hate to even bring this up. But: CWG says we

still have to keep an eye on a coastal storm for early in the weekend. For now it looks like it will stay south and out to sea, but that's not a done deal yet. And by late Sunday or Monday, an area of snow could be approaching from the west courtesy a clipper system originating in Canada. For now, there's not much confidence in whether this system will materialize and how strong it would be. We'll keep you posted.

What's his problem??

Anyway, lots of folks have weighed in in response to Capital Weather Gang's request for names (I mean, lots of folks...all that productivity, gone!) Here are some of the contenders, from the CWG site and elsewhere:

*Snowgasbord

*Snowly Crap

*Snowper Bowl

*Sno' Mo'

*Snowfulupagus

*SNOWVALANCHE

*Snowgasm (verdict from CWG: "soo not kid safe")

*THE GREAT FLAKE OUT

*Spongebob Snowpants

*Snobal Warming

*Ain't_No_Snowplow_High_Enough

*Snovatar

*The Great Senate Snowfu

*Kaiser Snowze (a personal favorite)

*The Great 2010 Less Than 2, 2 to 6, 6 to 12, 12+, Check Back Tomorrow Snowcastrophe

Of 300 suggestions, CWG narrowed the field to five, and there's now a poll going on. With 1,348 votes in, Snowmageddon is in the lead (35 percent), followed by Snowpocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo (24 percent), The Great Superbowl Superstorm of 2010 (15 percent), Kaiser Snowze (14 percent), and Alex Snovechkin's Revenge (9 percent).

There's a separate poll there for a Twitter hashtag. Go crazy.

Snow

Several wimpy area school systems will be closed today (Montgomery, Prince George's, Anne Arundel), but not the District. The District is badass. Opening on time!

It should turn nice this afternoon. But look into the Capital Weather Gang's Snow Lover's Crystal Ball: There's more stuff coming! "At the moment, everything remains on track for a major winter storm beginning during the day Friday and continuing into Saturday," the gang reports. "A substantial accumulation of snow is becoming increasingly likely."

Who's organizing the snowball fight? Detective Baylor?

In other news, today is Tai Shan's last day on view at the National Zoo before he's FedExed to China. The underwear bomber is cooperating. And the Oscar nominations are out ("Be still, my horrified heart," writes Tricia Olszewski, Washington City Paper's film critic. "We perhaps all knew it was coming, but now it’s official: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences believes that Avatar was one of the best films of 2009.")

Metro riders at Shady Grove on Monday night were wondering what the crime tape and white sheet were all about. The Examiner reports that a 22-year-old man killed himself by jumping from the seventh floor of the parking garage:

It was the second major incident in three days that the agency did not share with the public. On Saturday, a maintenance vehicle carrying 20 workers slid on an icy rail into a truck on the Red Line between the Medical Center and Grosvenor-Strathmore stations, causing a chain reaction that damaged four trucks. No one was injured, but the agency did not alert the public.

It also failed to notify its safety oversight group within two hours, as required.

Metro's anti-terrorism drill at Union Station yesterday—50 transit police officers, bomb technicians, M-4 rifles, and the scariest thing of all, McGruff the Crime Dog—will be followed by several more simulated tactical operations, the agency reports:

The first drill takes place on Friday, Feb. 12, in the parking lot at RFK Stadium. The scenario simulates an explosion on a Metrobus and an explosive found on a second Metrobus. The second exercise on Saturday, Feb. 13, entails an explosion on a Metrorail train in the tunnel between the Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom-GWU Metrorail stations. The final tactical drill takes place Wednesday, Feb. 24, where active shooters are reported at the Friendship Heights Metrorail station.

Happy hump day.

Big news: Gilbert Arenas' Twitter account has been disappeared! Yesterday, we provided a "Time to Last Tweet" clock (Arenas had made it more than a day and a half). Now, go to his page and you'll get only, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!" Lawyers! His Web site remains intact.

Less big news: It snowed—not a lot, but enough to freak out (get your forecast from the Capital Weather Gang here).

The Washington Examiner got the words "Love Child" on the front page of the paper. Never in a million years would I have predicted the words "love child" and Peter Orszag (as in the director of the Office of Management and Budget) would be uttered in the same sentence. But there you go. Joel Achenbach over at the Washington Post put it this way: "The office of OMB has just become the office of OMG."

Want to read a great police story? It involves a few too many shots of tequila, a lost laptop, a burly cop with dreadlocks and a diamond earring, and a secret hat signal. (For some reason, when I saw the word "Extortionist" in the headline, I read it as "Exhibitionist," so I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to get to the part where someone took his clothes off, and that never happened. But it's still a great police story. I must have had yesterday's naked jogger limerick on the brain.)

Something else to read: a post on City Desk yesterday by Editor Erik Wemple about whether Washington City Paper should delete abusive/offensive/nasty comments. Don't miss the chance, people: Comment!

One other thing to think about when you have nothing else to think about: How long is it acceptable to say, "Happy New Year"?

Plans for the weekend? Try the No Pants Metro Ride 2010. Sunday. 3 p.m to 5 p.m. Important instructions:

****The Mission****
Arrive at C Street Park for a brief meeting.
At the designated time / location – remove your pants!
Act completely casual or unknowing that your pants are missing.

Don't miss it!

Photograph from the No Pants Metro Ride Facebook page

And that's all you need. Period.

For the longest time, the Washington Post understood this basic human need. The design of its local weather page reflected as much. Brilliant in its simple, info-delivering elegance, it gave you just the snapshot you wanted. I can remember mornings when I'd flip to the last page of the Metro section, and I'd glean everything I needed in less than two seconds. Not even the Internet can beat that kind of efficiency. The glorious layout is right here, may God rest its soul:

Somehow, the Post wasn't satisfied with perfection.

So it switched to this approach:

Answer me one question, Post: How, o how, is this an improvement? Why do you send me plunging into a mass of data just to find out what my extended outlook looks like?

Did the Capital Weather Gang force a geeking-out of the weather presentation, focusing on all kinds of climatological arcana, instead of, like, the only data we need?

Not really. According to Post news projects editor Edward Thiede, the new approach to weather was part of the overall print redesign that launches next week. Since this particular part of the project was ready to go a bit early, they let it fly.

As for the reorganization of the page and the disappearance of that marvelous, boxy extended outlook, Thiede has a pretty sound explanation: "We wanted to organize it down the left side of the page," he says. "We thought it would be one area to see all the local weather data together."