The Daily Feather — Clippers, Screamers, Maulers and Scari-os

An ‘Alberta Clipper’ is a fast-moving low-pressure system that moves southeast out of the Canadian Province of Alberta through the U.S. Plains, Midwest and Great Lakes region usually during the winter. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the low-pressure area is usually accompanied by light snow, strong winds and colder temperatures. Milwaukee-based U.S. National Weather Service Office meteorologist Rheinhart Harms coined the term in the late 1960s, noting the rapid speed of these snow-producing storms as they moved across the Dakotas from Alberta towards the Great Lakes. Harms’ term entered the colloquial among U.S. and Canadian weather forecasters by the early 1970s and became part of the scientific literature of winter storms two decades later. We must add that Alberta isn’t alone. Less frequently, southward trekking Clippers originate as Saskatchewan Screamers, Manitoba Maulers and Ontario Scari-os.

December’s Chicago Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) looked as if it had been clipped. The 36.9 headline sent macro-observers screaming: “That’s a 5th percentile print in data to 1967!” Driving the triple nosedive were New Orders and Production, which fell 13.5 and 2.9 points, respectively, vis-à-vis November. More than half of survey respondents reported fewer new orders for the first time in four years, while regional industrial output posted its fourth successive decline pushing it to the lowest level since January 2009, the pandemic notwithstanding.