Snow in January? It’s possible. Just not on a balmy day where the temp rises to upper 60s and I’ve donned flowery summer clothes and no coat to enjoy a walk in the sunshine.
Someone in another country alerted me by WhatsApp that Washington, D.C. had snow.
Sure, outside President Trump‘s White House, there was apparently falling snow. The power there knows no bounds. (RELATED: House Investigating If Trump Lied To Mueller)
Or, as usual, Washington’s Twiteratti class was falling for another troll that may have just been a case of posting the wrong photo at the wrong time. Earlier in the week, on January, 7, was actually 2020’s first snow. This came at 8:55 p.m. Sunday. The White House’s Twitter bio says the content of the feed is the “latest from President @realDonaldTrump and his administration.”
First snow of the year! ❄️ pic.twitter.com/kgSLQX6QxK
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 13, 2020
Serious longtime journalist James Fallows, who worked at The Atlantic for a trillion years, was the first person to act sincerely surprised.
“What???” he asked. “The daytime high in DC today was 68F. I was wearing shorts this afternoon. When you sent out this tweet, it was still 20+ degrees too warm for snow.”
Come on, people, James Fallows was wearing shorts.
Isn’t that enough proof for you that snow was not happening?
Fallows even included a weather report that said: Precipitation: 0%; Humidity: 59% and Wind: 5 mph.
Right, in Fallows’ world, it was too warm for snow.
In Trump’s world, however, where anyone from senior policy adviser to Stephen Miller to occasional lawyer Rudy Giuliani can play weatherman, anything is possible. I imagine from time to it was once Omarosa‘s job to track the weather (eye roll). (RELATED: Michael Cohen Says Omarosa Is Not His Guru)
The Daily Beast‘s Molly Jong-Fast, a #NeverTrumper, was intent on proving the White House wrong on this extremely serious meteorological event.
“Ummmm,” she wrote, with a map of the Washington area and its corresponding weather.
Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko seemed to catch on that this was meant to be ridiculous. So he took the opportunity to bring up one of Trump’s favorite subjects.
“It’s been snowing in Russia for two weeks,” he cracked.
Progressive Dustin Miller felt the need to inject a dose of reality.
“It was 70 [degrees] F in Washington today,” he wrote. “The first snow of 2020 in DC was five days ago.”
Economist David Rothschild also took the whole thing extremely seriously.
“Huh? It’s 54 degrees right now in D.C.”
I can hear CNN’s CHIEF Media Correspondent Brian Stelter‘s common refrain in the high-pitched voice manufactured by provocateur YouTuber Mark Dice: “When the White House can’t get the SMALL stuff right, it makes you worry about the BIG stuff.”
Teresa, a.k.a. @Liberty4Al1, appeared to be the first person to explain what was happening.
“It’s so easy to trigger the deranged left and quite entertaining,” she wrote, and attached four hysterically laughing emoji faces.
People then had an about face and began attacking Trump with pictures of lines of cocaine.
Because one immature tweet deserves many more.
Trump has been catching a lot of grief as of late for all that sniffing in a recent address to the American people from the White House. (RELATED: Trump Had The Sniffles For His Very First Presidential Debate)
Here’s how Talking Points Memo Editor-in-Chief Josh Marshall reacted to the ordeal.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 13, 2020
Mark Groombridge, a senior VP at Global Communicators, a Washington public relations firm, tried to shed light on what was obviously happening.
“I’m a devout #NeverTrump Republican,” he wrote. “Sad to see so many smart people I respect falling for this trolling tweet. The @WhiteHouse knew the twitterverse would go berserk. They were being tongue-in-cheek and y’all fell for it with absurd corrections.”
Reactors called it “fake snow” and “fake news.”
Despite angry screenshots of the weather tweet and claims that Trump’s White House would likely delete, on Monday, sure enough, it was still there.
Happy Monday in the nation’s capital.
It’s 48 degrees and not snowing.
Not yet, anyhow.
