Saturday’s snow was crystalline perfection. Light and powdery, like something you might find in Aspen. Easy to shovel. Not the icy slop that falls in temperatures closer to 32 degrees. Odds are it won’t melt anytime soon.
Speaking of snow, it’s not white. Individual snow crystals are clear ice. Snow APPEARS white because billions of tiny, faceted crystals scatter light in every direction. When scattering is strong and roughly the same for all visible wavelengths, our eyes perceive the mix as white, for the same reason clouds and sea foam appear white.
Large snowflakes composed of dozens or even hundreds of small ice crystals are almost never identical. The larger and more ornate the flake, the more unique it becomes!
A little light snow is possible south and east of MSP later Monday and again Tuesday night ahead of a reinforcing slap of January-like air. We will wake up to near or just below zero degrees on Thursday. I see a conga line of clippers and more cold and accumulating snow.
January came early this year. A thaw anytime soon? Maybe mid-December.
