My son has just phoned from the Dolomites where he has been skiing. They
have had huge snowfalls and it is brown (and apparently doesn't taste very
pleasant either!). The locals say it contains dust from the Sahara which
sounds very plausible.

Certainly (visual) cloud animations, eg via:
http://www.wetter.com/home/content/D...p_xl.php?date=

show how the cloud has indeed moved up from N.Africa over the past few days
and mixed with the colder Northern European air. Note the snow cover over
Poland.

Jack