Winter storms will soon get real names.

The months since Hurricane Katrina have been filled with the fervor of apocalyptic millennialism for many weather geeks. The Weather Channel has been endlessly running a feature on how dreadful things would be if a Category Five storm trundled up the Hudson, leaving me, as a good Washingtonian, to mutter how Katrina on the Potomac wouldn’t exactly be a bag of cupcakes. Newspapers carry, as the Post did yesterday, breathless stories on how the earth…

Good news, Washington — the heat is over. For the time being, anyway. The Weather Channel promises temperatures in the 80s for the foreseeable future, and we would desperately like to believe them. The recent weather wasn’t only sticky and unpleasant; it was also chaotic. D.C. public pools stayed open late, then had to close early after swimmers got a minor electrical shock; President Bush’s trip to the Boy Scout Jamboree was cancelled due to…

Well, it looks like Punxsutawney Phil was right, at least for D.C. February, a mostly mild month for the area, is going out like a lion. Last week’s moderate snowfall foreshadowed the “weather event” coming toward us tonight. Jason Samenow of Capital Weather is predicting that we’ll be hit with 6-10 inches of snow beginning tonight and going well into Monday. Weather Underground agrees, as does The Weather Channel. These late-season snowstorms, though surprising,…