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Meteorological "March Madness"

Jason Samenow @ 12:57 AM

If this winter were a NCAA tourney team, it would be a bubble team that, despite inconsistent play early, snuck into the field due to some strong play late in the season. (By strong play, I mean some combination of snow and cold.) Since the winter of '04-05 is "in the dance" -- will it make some noise or fizzle out? (put another way, will we see any more snow?)

The forecast
Today and tomorrow will be partly cloudy and cool, but by no means bitter with highs 45-50 each day (pretty much like the afternoons the past couple days).

The hard part of the forecast begins Wednesday when a disturbance near the Gulf Coast begins heading northeastward. Will this storm come far enough north to bring us significant precipitation? Will it be cold enough to snow? The answers to those questions are very uncertain. My hunch is that there will be mix of rain and snow late Wednesday into Thursday, but that this will not be a big storm nor a big snow producer for our area. Still, snow lovers can pray. Consider snow the 12 seed and rain the 5 seed. The 5 seed usually wins, but upsets can and do occur with this pairing... And at least one analyst sees potential...

Speaking of basketball, a non-weather related rant
On Friday night, I was nearly arrested for the oh-so-heinous crime of purchasing tickets to the ACC basketball tournament. After a generous gentleman from Clemson sold me three tickets outside the Gallery Place metro for face value (where professional scalpers were charging three to four times that), I was surrounded and interrogated by two police officers for several minutes. I had to convince them not to arrest me and they begrudgingly let me go. This unpleasant incident begs the question: Why are DC officers targetting casual fans who, unlike the professional scalpers, are just trying to go see a basketball game? Casual fans like myself only go to an occasional game and don't know the rules about where and where they can't "buy" tickets. I find the practice of going after the "little guy" or the "easy target" reprehensible in light of all serious crime continuing unchecked in this city. (The upshot was that the tickets I lucked into were phenomenal--fifth row lower level, directly behind the Wake Forest and UVA bench for the two respective games that evening.)

My final four picks
North Carolina, Illinois, Wake Forest and Syracuse

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