Christie gets combative, Twitter gets merciless over his snow response

Now you don't see him, now you do.

Gov. Chris Christie returned to New Jersey from daily campaigning in New Hampshire Friday night, after initially saying he had no plans to (but that he could, if the storm started to look particularly severe). Plan A would have left Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno the state's highest-ranking official present — and she told Bill Spadea Friday she was in frequent contact with her boss.

Christie had weathered criticism for not initially planning to return to New Jersey — and he took a combative tone when asked about the turnaround at a press conference Friday, when he declared a state of emergency.

"I had no plans to come home. The situation got worse and it clarified." Christie said to reporters Friday.

He added: "The whole idea that the governor does not know what is going on when he is out of state is laughable."

While it's been clear for days New Jersey was in for a serious storm, meteorologists including New Jersey 101.5's Dan Zarrow said Friday afternoon forecasts were shifting to show much more intense snowfall and winds.

Thursday, Christie told WMUR in New Hampshire he’d be back in New Jersey if he needed to, “but I’m not driving a plow truck, OK? We have all of our people ready to go. They know what to do. We’ve been through Hurricane Sandy, this cabinet, so 6, 8, 10, 12 inches of snow on a weekend will not be something that I think will be more than we can handle.”

Christie's announcement he was returning home from New Hampshire was overwhelmingly met with ridicule on Twitter: