Threat Level: Elevated for Cold

Now

Variable cloudiness, seasonably cold. After some scattered flurries, temperatures have peaked out near 40° in the Washington metro area. Colder and drier air will be moving in late tomorrow and into Friday.

Tonight and Tomorrow

Partly cloudy, turning colder. Mostly cloudy skies tonight will give way to more sunshine tomorrow afternoon as colder air filters into the region. There is a chance of scattered flurries as the cold air moves in. Lows tonight will be from near 30° downtown to the mid and upper 20s in the 'burbosphere. Highs tomorrow will be near 37°, but turning colder late in the day and at night.

For the outlook through the rest of the week and weekend, scroll on down to Dan's post below.

Hollywood Report

"An Inconvenient Truth" has been nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary category. The movie trailer is available online in Google Video, along with several other related videos. (Flash 7 or higher required, running time 1:37). See the 50-foot wall of water crush New York . . . Not!

Weather Humor

The Weather Channel, specifically, the Climate Code, was cited as the #1 item in the Colbert Report Threatdown last night, beating out even CNN, for reporting the truth about a phony Barack Obama story, and the "tree-huggers" of "The Wizard of Oz". The reason, of course, was its hidden agenda: Bears!

Video is available at ComedyCentral.com. (Look for the Threatdown Media Edition.) For TiVo fans, the segment begins at 0:13 of the show. The program is repeated tonight at 8:30. Make your own weather Threatdowns and submit them via the image upload function of the Comments section. The most humorous will appear in a future PM Update.

The Onion reported this story in its Jan. 24 Daily Dispatch:

Northeast Stunned By Freak January Snowfall
SYRACUSE, NY--"I've seen some freak weather, but this definitely tops them all," said area resident Mary Baloh, whose garden was slightly set back by the 1.5-inch snowfall.