A wintry mix in mid-December makes for a miserable commute, but officials are gearing up for misery multiplied should Mother Nature let loose on January’s Inauguration Day.

“The bottom line is there is a tremendous amount of people coming into any one given area, which means we’ll have to be in full-scale operations mode,” said David Buck, a spokesman for the Maryland State Highway Administration. “Gosh forbid there’s even a flake of snow.”