January Banter 2026

[mappy]

1 hour ago, mitchnick said:

Boy, do I miss driving on Ritchie Highway.....NOT!

 

Same friend, same. Grew up in Pasadena and in a neighborhood not far from Ritchie. Seriously the worst. My mom is still down there and I avoid it as much as possible when I go to visit. 

[Snowciopathic Snow Bro]

I've got early intel on Punxsutawney Phil's upcoming decision next week:

[ravensrule]

2 hours ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Unfortunate coincidence. Could've been partying in an absurd mansion in Aspen. But I don't like traveling during the winter in case it snows here, so all good anyway. Not upset at all 

That’s a real man, snow before partying is a mansion in Aspen. 

[nj2va]

We’re going on a cruise out of FLL on Sunday…the forecast Sunday morning is wind chills in the 20s and a high of 52.  Yeesh.

[NorthArlington101]

That’s a real man, snow before partying is a mansion in Aspen. 

The surgery provided a convenient excuse

[mdhokie]

23 hours ago, ThePhotoGuy said:

Really should have gotten into the snow removal business with this storm. On a few local Facebook groups, people are making $200+ to clear home sidewalks/driveways. 

That might be a fair price, depending on size. Someone in my neighborhood with a medium size driveway had a crew come in to clear it after everything had frozen into concrete. Took 5 guys with landscape shovels over 45mins. No clue how much she paid but assuming at least $30/hr per person. 

Landscape companies are raking it in. Saw a convoy of trucks loaded with snow, with a bobcat on a trailer. Some of these townhouse communities have no where to put it all. 

[ErinInTheSky]

1 hour ago, mdhokie said:

That might be a fair price, depending on size. Someone in my neighborhood with a medium size driveway had a crew come in to clear it after everything had frozen into concrete. Took 5 guys with landscape shovels over 45mins. No clue how much she paid but assuming at least $30/hr per person. 

Landscape companies are raking it in. Saw a convoy of trucks loaded with snow, with a bobcat on a trailer. Some of these townhouse communities have no where to put it all. 

On reddit people were paying $450 for a full driveway. 

[Scraff]

Wild Caps win! Love it! Man I hope Chucky is ok though. 

[pazzo83]

9 hours ago, ErinInTheSky said:

Aaaand MCPS closed

lol what a joke.  DCPS is 2 hr delay (was today and tomorrow).

[pazzo83]

5 hours ago, SnowenOutThere said:

UVA canceled (all online) Monday and Tuesday with a 10am start yesterday and now it’s back to normal. They did an incredible job internally with ice removal but Charlottesville is a complete mess so a ton of professors are self canceling. 

After PD2 I think we missed like 3 or 4 straight days.  Same as this stuff, they couldn't plow that shit (we got like 6+" of sleet).

[pazzo83]

5 hours ago, NorthArlington101 said:

UVA didn't mess around with their removal when I was a student there. Pretty darn good... only day I had trouble was during COVID trying to get to grounds during an ice storm. That was a little stupid. 

I remember going into UVA, folks were like "UVA didn't even cancel classes during the Civil War!!" etc.  Then, they cancelled classes for Hurricane Isabel, PD2, and a number of other storms over the next couple of years.

[pazzo83]

5 hours ago, SnowenOutThere said:

It was honestly really impressive. Though only having ohill open for three days was rough for some people on Sunday and Monday. I just survived off my Saturday 6am wegmans bakery run  

Is the Treehouse still there?

[Jebman]

Beginning in the February 2026 Thread, I will start a page about loving and worshipping snow.

What started this little slog?

Yesterday. Watertown, NY. The camera. I saw they got close to 2 feet of fresh pow. I watched it come down.

Now, I want this fate for DCA and vicinity. It would be so wonderful if the public had to deal with 24 inches of fresh snow on top of the glacial catastrophe that is the present DMV.

Age has done me NO good. I do not have wisdom. Wisdom and maturity are both grossly overrated.

Snow is Number One. More than things, people or even life itself. Having deep ice underneath is even better. Sidewalks are unpassable. People fall. They end up in the streets where automobiles tend to slam on the brakes, and, well you know what happens next.

It's gonnabe the worst of the Jebman, and the Best of the Jebman.

Get a steel square edged shovel with a fiberglass handle. This is a Jebman Shovel. Use it. You'll need it. Much more winter weather is on the way for Washington DC.

Get Spotify on your phone and get headphones. Blast those tracks that remind you of heavy snow. Start taking jebwalks and slide on the ice while shouting Woooooooo----Hooooooo because you're so damn happy there's ice and frigid weather in DC.

Put your hands in cold water then walk around on the Washington Glacier and FEEL that wind! Feel those low dewpoints! Breathe it in DEEP!

This is NO time to be on that damn couch, stuffing jelly donuts and getting fat. It's high time to channel the Hero within yourself and get the pick, a sledge and the shovel and start removing the ice from DC, one agonizing chip at a time.

One more important thing. Ji said I am 12 years old. He's correct, except that I'm really 5. This, is why I worship snow still, in early 2026. You'd think I'd know better after five years. But, I don't. I don't understand why I can somehow remember storms as far back as January 19, 1979 in Alexandria. Or the fact that once we didn't have the Internet. Or reel to reel technology. Landlines, cassette tapes, the Greaseman in DC in the 1980s, tie dyed shirts, the Summer of Love in 1969, and a lot of other stuff. The BLIZZARD on March 13, 1993. The Infamous Ice Storms in northern Va in Jan-Feb 1994, and others. Not bad for a five year old, huh?

Oh, and Ji? I still crave for that Carolinas blizzard to hit DCA so hard with 12-24 inches of fluffy snow, right smack-dab on top of the Washington DC Glacier! I want this SO BAD!!!

Let's have a Jan 25, 2000 Redux! Let's will this in!

[Jebman]

12 hours ago, Snowciopathic Snow Bro said:

I've got early intel on Punxsutawney Phil's upcoming decision next week:

This is one of your very BEST! I wanna be fully Snowciopathic, too! Damn I love this! I love ICE like some people love g-d. Ice is the best!

[Jebman]

9 hours ago, ErinInTheSky said:

On reddit people were paying $450 for a full driveway. 

Damn I coulda made a killing if I was still young enough to dig lots of ice and snow.

[dailylurker]

The NAM looks amazing for NC. Maybe one day we'll get a NC quality storm up here lol

[Jebman]

10 minutes ago, dailylurker said:

The NAM looks amazing for NC. Maybe one day we'll get a NC quality storm up here lol

Yeah DC is too far north for NC quality snow.

[NorthArlington101]

[Kay]

WxUSAF needs to come back and rescue his storm

[North Balti Zen]

fwiw, every time I see someone get all excited over barney purples for cold showing up on progs I roll my eyes so fucking hard - because that kind of cold sitting over us usually sucks total ass for snow and...POINTS AT THE CURRENT REGIME WE ARE IN...here we are.  Barneys on the map are good for the Carolinas. 

[MN Transplant]

1 hour ago, NorthArlington101 said:

Gulf-effect snow.  Fantastic.  The HRRR has a hint of it too.

[NorthArlington101]

1 minute ago, MN Transplant said:

Gulf-effect snow.  Fantastic.  The HRRR has a hint of it too.

Hope it pans out! Florida flurries are cool, at least south of the Panhandle. Panhandle gets as much snow as we do these days.

[snowfan]

25 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said:

fwiw, every time I see someone get all excited over barney purples for cold showing up on progs I roll my eyes so fucking hard - because that kind of cold sitting over us usually sucks total ass for snow and...POINTS AT THE CURRENT REGIME WE ARE IN...here we are.  Barneys on the map are good for the Carolinas. 

Fair point but I also don't believe this cold was supposed to be historic in terms of crazy record lows as much as it was for its duration. From that respect, it has delivered. Many away from the metro areas will likely near or surpass 2 weeks at or below freezing. Heck, based on current guidance, some may hit 3 weeks.

[North Balti Zen]

Just now, snowfan said:

Fair point but I also don't believe this cold was supposed to be historic in terms of crazy record lows as much as it was for its duration. From that respect, it has delivered. Many away from the metro areas will likely near or surpass 2 weeks at or below freezing. Heck, based on current guidance, some may hit 3 weeks.

Sure - but the depth of the cold and the duration has verified barneys. It's just that...barneys like that tend to come at a dry cost. I saw that for the entire decade of the 80s in central Ohio - we popped -10s and -20s regimes several times that decade - and were dry as fuck each time. This isn't THAT cold but over here, it is not gonna be. But prolonged single digit lows area-wide is quite unusual for us and representative of the kind of cold that really isn't conducive to snow chances paradoxically. 

[North Balti Zen]

Also, again, not for nothing, but thank the snow weenies gods we cashed in as much as we did last weekend at the start of this pattern. If we had indeed missed out on that only to watch the next several storms bury the outer banks this place would be rightfully apoplectic.  We tend to miss the first storm in a favorable pattern so gonna take a glass half full view that I am glad we hit what we did.

The aftermath of that storm has been quite a thing to behold. We don't tend to get area-wide glaciers of snowcover. This is one for the memorybooks...

[WxUSAF]

1 hour ago, Kay said:

WxUSAF needs to come back and rescue his storm

Patience. Shitty frontal passage will recover.

[snowfan]

25 minutes ago, North Balti Zen said:

Also, again, not for nothing, but thank the snow weenies gods we cashed in as much as we did last weekend at the start of this pattern. If we had indeed missed out on that only to watch the next several storms bury the outer banks this place would be rightfully apoplectic.  We tend to miss the first storm in a favorable pattern so gonna take a glass half full view that I am glad we hit what we did.

The aftermath of that storm has been quite a thing to behold. We don't tend to get area-wide glaciers of snowcover. This is one for the memorybooks...

This last storm was such a unique combo of things all at once for this area. And the slow recovery....especially for those that got both the front thump and maxed out on sleet....is wild to witness. I think it may have been WxUSAF that put it best....our area relies of post storm melting to help w recovery a d there's none of that this time and as a result, local gvt is struggling.