snoWatch: Or should we say floodWatch?

Festivus is upon us! The ridiculous holiday popularized by "Seinfeld" kicked off in D.C. this weekend, and this writer thought Blazers could use a little airing of the grievances themselves. So here goes.

We at Silver Chips Online believe strongly in Chemistry. Water is the basis of life. When the little red bar on my plastic thermometer drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, water gets really hard and slippery and miraculously forms...ice.

Okay, so maybe I didn't pay attention to heats of fusion and melting points (there was something with hydrogen, oxygen and Mickey Mouse ears?). But I'm pretty sure that when there's water and cold involved, ice, hail and sleet rain upon us. So why did the upper atmosphere fail Blazers? Beats me. All we needed was a slight drop in temperature and a day off would have been virtually guaranteed.

As it stands, AccuWeather is calling for a temperature of 37 degrees tonight in Poolesville, which is the region Silver Chips Online (and hopefully MCPS) uses to make our predictions. And while they also predict a 100 percent chance of snow and sleet, the pattering sound on the windows right now tells us that AccuWeather is having problems with AccuRacy. Trading snow boots for rain boots may seem utterly depressing - but look to snoWatch for a more hopeful forecast this weekend!

snoWatch Predictions - where we make up fake numbers based on actual facts

Chance of delayed opening: 16 percent

Hey, maybe Superintendent Weast will want to sleep in. We don't call the shots around the county. And school has closed for freak thunderstorms before, though those were usually accompanied by a loss of electricity in at least a thousand homes around the county. (Come on, PEPCO, pull a switch, snip some wires, hook us up!).

Chance of closing: 0.04 percent

Do your homework. If you're counting on a day off tomorrow, you need the Festivus feats of strength to knock a little sense into you.