Always in Zugzwang

That is amazing and hilarious! Up there with @Jebman's famous rant about New England snow years ago. Congrats, you win the interwebs with that one!

I think @GATECH absconded with it! Don't fear, I'm sure the SE ridge will roar back more than we care for, at the worst possible time!

That's close to DEFECATION, as in on the blinds...

I offer up my rum to Jobu...

Gerunds... Wow that takes me way back to when I once took Latin!

Yup. Lots of flags on the play and red cards!

It most certainly is!

I once went to a fight and a hockey game broke out! (old joke, I know)

That awful image of...whatever it was!...that @H2O posted earlier, now THAT's a real turd in the punch bowl!!

This is the cuisine version of the pumped-up (engorged???) southeast ridge and the WAR! Instead of a fine cake or pie, we end up with pimento-filled green olives and...whatever that gray shit is!

The deviled eggs are the LEAST of my concerns in that image! And that's saying something!

I know, right?! A whole new level of repulsive in there! The Spaghetti-oh wieners almost look appetizing by comparison, and I can't believe I just said that!

Ummm...errrr...that's just...well, I got nothin'! Excuse me while I go puke a little! (Wait, OK, are those oysters mixed in there?). You need carrot cake!! @WxWatcher007, where's your @Mrs.J bat signal! We need that STAT!!

That's a big step up from your weenies in spaghetti-ohs!

Good thing you ignored that engorgement! (sorry, couldn't resist!)

No frosted poop emoji anymore! But seriously, I can take a wild guess that you're not overly enthused about the upcoming window (such as it is), and I honestly couldn't blame you if that's truly how you feel. It has been frustrating, and we can only hope that one of these will actually work! (I suspect you're getting ready to throw the book at us!)

Hey @WinterWxLuvr, some threat possibilities that don't start with a "3" on the forecast hour, finally!

MR Ducks! MR Not! OSAR! CM Wings? LIB, MR Ducks!

Of course. I was being sarcastic with my comment. In the ~22 years that I've been in this area, there hasn't been a below zero temperature in the immediate metro area in the places I've lived. Maybe close...single digits...but not below zero. And like I said, looking back at Feb. 2007 and Feb. 2015...two of the coldest months in that time...we didn't get there (at least around DCA where I was). But yes, if that "signal" of extreme temperatures is real, we could well see some bitter cold all the same and threaten record lows as you say. And if there is any decent snow pack, outlying areas surely could dip into the negatives. I mean, look at Christmas weekend, how cold it got, and not even a coating of snow cover anywhere near here.

Yeah, I totally see -10F temperatures in and around DC. Absolutely! LOL!! It would be colder than what we got in the extremely frigid Februarys of 2007 and 2015. Don't see us greatly exceeding that in almost any scenario. But all the same, the signal for very cold air is there, just probably not at that level.

It's hard to say if the GFS is "rushing" things, but yeah that period in early-mid February may well have legs. I do remember the models have been advertising a similar kind of overrunning attacking the pressing cold air starting sometime about the very end of this month into the first couple of days of February. Maybe it was last week's runs? There was a similar such event as what the 18Z GFS is now showing, just earlier (end of Jan.). And that kind of scenario has shown up on various days in this same general time frame. It may have gotten pushed back from last day or two of January but that signal has appeared.

Well, this is the year of the Rabbit! Also, speaking of Holy Grails...

You'll have to see @yoda for that...

True. It was a big shift for an ensemble in one cycle. I guess it's all perspective...either the ridge is farther east or the downstream trough isn't digging out into the southwest/Pacific forcing the ridge too far west.