Weather.com is forecasting that the Columbia campus could see the season's first snow showers early Tuesday morning.

According to their hour-by-hour forecast, snow showers could begin around 3 a.m. and continue into the early afternoon, becoming mixed with rain.

Now Bwog has been let down by snow forecasts many times over the years, so don't bet the tuition money on this one just yet. But, because Bwog does love snow oh so very much, even the slimmest, tiniest prospect brings great excitement.

So why not mark the occasion with a contest?

Bwog wants to know who can spot the first flake of the semester. If you see snow, post where and when you saw the flurry in a comment. The sharp-eyed spotter gets good luck, at least according to some Appalachian folk traditions and this badly written Internet fiction.

Keep watching the skies!

Bwog snow correspondent Kate Linthicum brings us some excellent photos of the big show that you're hiding from indoors.

It's like news from a sinking ship: text messages, calls from borrowed cell phones, and internet cafe e-mails have been pouring in recently from those stranded in exotic spring break locales (including the ridiculous number congregating here). The nastiness outside in New York grounded over a thousand planes, foiling the homework plans and sinking the budgets of partiers scattered across the Carribean.

Perhaps most troublingly, it seems that key members of the student government are missing. The CCSC VP Funding is stuck in the Bahamas, the VP Communications is stuck in Fort Lauderdale, and the senior class president is somewhere between here and Jamaica. Thankfully, the VP Policy is safe at Columbia, and we can only presume that the President and VP Campus life are in secure, undisclosed locations.

The VP Communications sends these observations from Fort Lauderdale:

Man on Phone: "It's so fucked up. It's so fucked up, Steph."
Woman, probably wife, on other end: "..."
Man: "What the fuck do you want me to do? Grow wings and fly? I don't feel good."
Woman: "..."
Man: "Why don't I try to rebook it? What the fuck do you think I've been doing for the last 30 minutes? Can't you just call them from home and pretend that you're me?"
Wife: "..."
Man: "OK! You're a woman! Not a good plan. I need to go. I need to eat. I'm getting dizzy."

More after the jump...

Continuing today's snow sculpture-related coverage, and apropos to tonight's J-School lecture on regime change, one of the once proudly (or panoptically!) upstanding snowmen on South Lawn appears to have capitulated, inspiring Bwog to cite Shelley's "Ozymandias" and post this apt juxtaposition:

Meanwhile, this find on Hamilton Lawn indicates it may not have been quite the bloodless coup:

On the other side of the lawn, however, the week's most admirable snow folly lives on: what one contributor called "Calvin and Hobbes-esqe sculpture...there's a snowman bowling with a second snowman's head":

Two Bwoggers sent in this photo of the mysterious (and large) SOS in the South Lawn snow, taken earlier today from the 7th floor of Hamilton. What could have possibly caused someone to create the massive distress signal? Could it have been due to some late-night shipwreck, leaving the castaways no option but to carve the gigantic rescue call onto the lawn and await rescue? Was it, perhaps, merely crafted of drunken freshmen unable to swagger back to their dorms? You decide.

CC student: Freshmen have so many classes here.
SEAS student: CC freshmen have a lot of classes here.
CC: Smart freshmen have a lot of classes here.
SEAS: Freshmen who won't have jobs after they graduate.
CC: Freshmen who don't have asthma.
SEAS: Freshmen who have sticks up their asses.
CC: Well, it cures the asthma.

Thanks to Ashley Nin and Steven Thomas for their keen eyes and ears.