As usual the weathermen were totally wrong. The snow was very light, and easily melted with the massive amounts of salt on the road. I remember that the goal of weather prediction was stymied by advances in chaos theory, preventing the sort of long term weather prognostication that many believed was possible even in the 1970s. However, that problem always revolved around long term trends, like a week or more. The inability to predict the correct amount of snowfall or even the duration of the storm (it was predicted to start in the afternoon but didn't begin until well after dark) is odd, given the increase in sensors scattered around the region.

Much like the inability to accurately predict the weather, the odd logic in our president's head is explained somewhat today in a piece by Michael Kinsley. It's like explaining a snowstorm after the fact: it's easy to do so in hindsight (though Kinsley, as usual, does it better than most) but there's no way to predict the next one. Unless that next one involves invading Iraq.