​As of 7 a.m. it's more like a mini-blizzard outside the windows of the Daily RFT "Storm Center." The white stuff is coming down fast, and the National Weather Service predicts we could get 2 to 4 inches of snow by noon before the precipitation turns to rain. 

Lovely. Here's the good news, though: By Thursday -- St. Patrick's Day -- they're predicting sunny skies and a high of  77.

Did you put it on your calendar? Is your BlackBerry beeping? Because tonight's the night! Last month's snowpocalypse saw plenty of things snowed out, and the Amazing Acro-Cat Circus was among them. Their performance at 2720 Cherokee, presented by Cranky Yellow, was canceled, but their rescheduled antics are happening tonight. Seriously, don't sleep on this. Go see these live-action LOLcats!

Look for something like this (on wheels) in your 'hood soon.

​Every once in a great while we peons here at Daily RFT experience the delusion that perhaps we're making a difference. That maybe someone is actually reading our words and -- shock of all shocks! -- taking us seriously.

We got that strange sense this morning when stumbling across Mayor Francis Slay's blog. Two days ago one of our posts -- explaining why it is St. Louis streets continue to resemble glaciers a week after last week's ice storm -- got dozens of social media shares and more than a few angry comments from city residents unsatisfied with the city's snow-removal policy.

Now today, via the mayor's blog, the St. Louis Street Department's Todd Waelterman, says no more.
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The intersection of Chouteau and Vandeventer as photographed this morning.

​Daily RFT has fielded several inquiries from readers wanting to know why their St. Louis street remains snow-packed and why the city isn't doing anything about it.

Yesterday we got on the blower with City Hall. Here's the deal for those unfamiliar with city policy and budget woes: The St. Louis Street Department only allocates funding to clear snow from arterial (a.k.a. busy and/or emergency) routes and "secondary" streets that feed into those bigger roadways. It does not budget for snow removal on residential streets. Why?
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Boston's mayor appealed for M.I.T. engineers to develop flame throwers to help save the city from record snowfall.

​Francis Slay is back in town. The St. Louis mayor arrived home Wednesday via Amtrak after his flight from California was canceled Monday due to Midwest snow storms. 

One of the mayor's first stops upon his return was to visit the city's emergency command center at Soldiers' Memorial. That's where his staff had been holed up for "Snowmaggedon" as they coordinated with street and disaster crews to clear the ice and snow.

Still, much of the region continues to look like the innards of an old freezer in need of a serious defrosting. Two to three inches of ice coats damn near everything, and based on the weather forecast, the ice is likely to be here for a week or longer.

What to do? May we suggest that Mayor Slay take a page out of the playbook of Boston's late, great mayor, James Curley.
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Certainly the most unfortunate casualty of the Giant Storm that Wasn't was Tuesday's scheduled performance of the Amazing Acro-Cat Circus. A troupe of house cats trained by Chicago's Amazing Animals by Samantha, the cats performed amazing feats and rocked out Monday night at 2720 Cherokee, sponsored by the fine folks at Cranky Yellow.

But their scheduled Tuesday gig was snowed out, which means you can still catch the rescheduled ridiculousness March 10th. Your $12 ticket price benefits Tenth Life, a local cat rescue.

In the meantime, wrap your mind around this:

Need more proof that it's cold outside? Really?

Okay, then behold the following testimony (via Fox 2) of this shirtless survivor who plunged into the Grand Basin at the bottom of Art Hill yesterday.
 Moral of the story: "You can't stop when you're going down an icy hill on an ice sled. It's just not going to happen."

One more update as we continue to provide you non-stop coverage of Snowmaggedon '11. While the precipitation is gone, we're now dealing with crazy cold temperatures.

As you can see from this high-tech climate gauge positioned directly outside the windows of the DailyRFT "Weather Center" (a.k.a. my kitchen), it appears to be about 8 degrees right now. And that's in Fahrenheit. You wanna talk cold!? It's -12 in Celsius. Kerslappp!

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Slay reacts to news that he won't be home for Snowmaggedon '11.

​Updated 8:35 a.m. with a hilarious new out take!

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay missed the blizzard that sacked much of Missouri yesterday and left his fair city coated in a few inches of ice and sleet.

The mayor was in Albuquerque. As the St. Louis Beacon reports, Slay tried to fly home Monday to join his staff at their emergency weather bunker in the basement of Soldiers' Memorial. But his Southwest Airlines flight was canceled due to the weather. The Beacon adds that the mayor made an attempt to travel home by car before deciding to hop on a train.

Slay is now expected to arrive home today and was last reported as being eastbound on the Amtrak's Southwest Chief. That's the people train.
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Here in the RFT "Weather Center" (a cubicle within earshot of a TV tuned into non-stop coverage of Snowmaggedon) we just heard the damndest thing. That blizzard forecast for St. Louis may turn out to produce just a few inches of snow -- if that. According to the guy squawking on KMOV Channel 4, St. Louis could just see a bit more of the sleet that's been falling all day.

Here's the latest radar with St. Louis in the purple band of sleet that's moving northeast and should be out of here by late afternoon.

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