There air was charged with excitement on Tuesday. It was as if His Holiness the Pope was going to make a personal visit the very next day. Television and radio shows, online social media, newspapers, even water-cooler gossip was abuzz about one thing: the big one.

The local meteorologist was an overnight sensation – Justin Bieber would have been jealous. The usually boring clad weather-man on the community TV station traded in his grey outfit for a chocolate-brown suit, yellow shirt and red tie. He was determined bask in his newly found glory. His face showed up for updates every half hour.

Preparations started on Monday. Immediately after it was announced that Southern Ontario would be walloped by the biggest snow storm (in two years), the good people of Brampton, and the Greater Toronto Area readied their snow shovels, hauled yellow bags of road salt from petrol stations, and stayed keenly updated as reports trickled in predicting a progressively worse outcome with every passing hour.

By early Wednesday morning, the school day was effectively suspended, arrangements made to work from home, transit schedules adjusted, and snow boots readied. The good citizens of the GTA filled up on coffee and much anticipation. “Two feet of snow – that’s 30 centimetres for those on the metric system,” I heard him say. So, you can understand the disappointment when the city woke up to less than half the snow predicted.

The weather-man’s 5 minutes of fame this winter season ended in predictable disappointment. For those like me, who still made the morning commute, only to find an empty parking lot and a locked library, the let-down was even bigger. The city had effectively shut down on a meteorological rumour. Although Snowmageddon didn’t materialize, it is still judgement day for the weather guy, who is back to donning his usual grey colour scheme. “A number of factors have led to the scaling down of the snow storm prediction,” was the last I heard him say.