Getty Images/Neilson Barnard

While some of the far western suburbs got blanketed in snow yesterday, for the most part, the passing snowstorm—whatever you may call it—turned out to be little more than a big, wet nothing.

Still, the National Weather Service and D.C.’s meteorologists did their damndest to ensure that we all anticipated the biggest episode of winter weather in more than two years. In the end, the only thing D.C. residents got was a day off from work—at least for those who follow the federal schedule—and maybe some wet shoes.

But no forecasting unit was more aggressive in predicting wintry doom that the Capital Weather Gang, who badgered much of the rest of D.C. into using a stupid nickname for the eventual non-storm. The weather gangsters might say now that their prediction models led them astray, but perhaps there’s a better explanation: They could have been just tricking us. After all, the Capital Weather Gang has large platform from which to broadcast their predictions, and they ginned up a lot of anticipation that D.C. would get pelted by half a foot of wet, heavy snow, or more.

We should have known better. After all, it’s the same thing Oscar the Grouch once pulled on the unwitting residents of Sesame Street:

Hat tip to DCist reader Jack Komperda to finding the clip and sending it our way. It’s a vital lesson that one must never trust the meteorologist—or, for that matter, fuzzy, green monsters that live in the garbage can. (Actually, weather predictions are growing increasingly accurate, according to Nate Silver, who, it turns out, is a better prognosticator of things than the Capital Weather Gang.)