More and more politicians and government types are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. And in this blizzard, they're using the service to share information about the storm -- and sometimes those messages are more blunt than their press releases or public statements.

I follow several government Twitter accounts in the region, and here's a sampling of some of the "tweets" (messages) today:

Annapolis Mayor Joshua Cohen: "Only emergency vehicles & snow equipment are authorized to drive on roads. A beer run does not qualify as a big enough emergency to drive."

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman: "Please Please Please DO NOT go out in this. We cannot afford to devote resources to rescuing stranded motorists. Thx"

New Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake: "I'm urging all Baltimore City residents to stay at home and avoid driving except in case of extreme emergency!"

Maryland State Highway Administration: "As the sun comes up please do not get curious and attempt to drive. The storm is expected through late Saturday. Stay home. #mdsnow"

Another interesting facet to Twitter is the "hashtags" that people use to identify the subject of their tweets. Adding a word with a pound sign (#) in front makes one's tweet easy to find by other Twitterers who are searching for tweets on the same subject.

Here are some of the hashtags I've seen people using for this storm: #mdsnow #snopocalypse (or #snowpocalypse or #snopocalypse2) #snomaggedon #snotoriousBIG #snOMG (as in "snow" plus "OMG," which is short for "Oh My God.")