I heard from a reader who wondered what Baltimore professional meteorologist Eric the Red thought about yesterday's forecasts missing the mark. Perfect timing because I just heard from him:

"The killer with this event was the fact that the storm had zero wrap-around precip. Instead, there was a very sharp, linear north-south back edge to it ... so despite the fact that the changeover to snow occurred hours earlier than I thought, the pcp also ended hours earlier than I thought.  The net result:  a big swing and a miss. I guess if there's any consolation, it's that if you're gonna get one wrong, it might as well be an event where realistically we were looking at 1 to 2 inches, 3 tops."

Eric added some thoughts for the outlook for the rest of the month: 

"For what it's worth, took a look at some of the upper-air forecast charts, and it does not look good for snow fans for the rest of December.  Instead of a blocking high over the northern Atlantic - like we've had the past 2 winters - we have the exact opposite... a strong low.  With its strong counter clockwise spin, it tends to pull the cold air east out of North America and into northern Europe.  I affectionately call it the North Atlantic Shop Vac. ... So our already-low odds of a white Christmas are even lower.  ... "