IT'S CLEARED THE AIR. Tuesday's weather forecast noted that we lack dust particles to form snowflakes.

I HATE "Alberta Clippers"! Not only are they the most unpredictable snowstorms to predict, but this one, with the atmosphere solidly below freezing, is producing a little sleet and freezing drizzle and seemingly defying the laws of physics to the uninitiated. What is happening is this: the air is so clean right now, that drops of frozen liquid have no nuclei to form onto and freeze (nuclei being a speck of dust or something similar). Lacking it, the moisture falls as supercooled water droplets---and then freezes on contact. So, we throw that into the mix of the forecast today, and then we catch a break tonight and tomorrow and much of Thursday...before we get a wintry, snowy and/or icy mix Thursday evening.

The forecast did not attribute the cleansed air to the recent spell of snowstorms. We had plenty of snow before Christmas, but it melted in such a way as to preclude a white Christmas, and some more just before New Year, and that melted in a system that brought in tornadoes, and the recent spate of snows arrived just too late for the planned snow sculpting contest.