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The frenzied search for a snow shovel and preparations for a storm-bound weekend was all for naught.

Blame it on a simple twist of fate - meteorological fate, that is.

The storm that was expected to drop nearly a foot of snow in the Foothills and paralyze much of the state had the wind taken out of its sails by a band of dry air, said meteorologist Todd Shoemake with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.

Instead, the Duke City woke to a an inch or two of snow and business as usual.

The interstates were open, traffic was moving smoothly around town, no power outages were reported and the massive preparations by state and city officials for another major blizzard proved unnecessary.

"If a couple of things had gone just a little differently, it could have been a significant precipitation-maker," Shoemake said of the storm.

The system came out of the Baja California region packed with moisture. When it met a low-pressure area over New Mexico, that moisture was supposed to fall in substantial amounts as it swept through the state from the southwest. The metro area was expecting 3 to 6 inches of snow; the Foothills 10 inches; the Sandia and Manzano Mountains a foot or more.

Coming on the heels of a record-breaking snowfall in December that caught many unprepared, the forecast for this weekend's storm prompted a run on supplies.

Hardware stores reported brisk sales of shovels and ice-melt. State, county and city officials came together and promised better response by snow plow drivers and and sanders. They promised that electronic signs on the interstates would provide more accurate information for drivers. They vowed not to let the interstates turn into parking lots.

But the storm turned out weaker than expected, largely because of an unforeseen band of dry air in the upper atmosphere, Shoemake said.

The dry air created a buffer zone between the moist air and the cold air, which essentially cut precipitation in half, he said.

Albuquerque is still expecting snow showers today, but with accumulations up to 3 inches, not 6, he said. And the storm expected to drop an inch on Sunday is now forecast to leave just a dusting, he said.

"We're not out of the clear yet," Shoemake said early today. "We're just kind of behind on accumulation."

There's more dry air in the forecast for the coming week, he said. Low temperatures will be unseasonably cool, dipping to the low teens, but afternoons should warm up to around 50 degrees by midweek.