Snön i sahara
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Fifth time in 42 years: Why snowfall has blanketed sand dunes of Sahara desert
Snow in the Sahara!
Believe it or not, it’s true… A photographer has captured mesmerising pictures of snow blanketing sand dunes in the Sahara Desert in Africa where temperatures as high as 58 degrees Celsius have been recorded.
So, why is it snowing in the desert? We take a stab at the answer.
The images show snow and ice near the town of Ain Sefra in northwest Algeria. The area has experienced snow only a handful of times in the past 40 years.
Ain Sefra is located in the Atlas Mountains, 1, metres above sea level and is known as “the gateway to the desert”. It lies in the Naama province of Algeria in the northern part of the Sahara, close to the Moroccan border.
The dusting of snow is the fifth time in 42 years that the town has seen snow, with previous occurrences in , , and
Ain Sefra sees average high temperatures of around 37 degrees Celsius in summer and has seen record lows of degrees Celsius in winter.
A UK weather official was quoted as telling The Independent that snow in the Sahara is “unusual but not unheard of.”
Snow is very rare in the desert because there is n
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Snowfall in a hot desert may seem a contradiction but snow has been recorded several times in the Sahara Desert over the gods decades, most recently in January Thus, snowfall may be unusual but fryst vatten not unprecedented in the region.
In order for snow to form, two distinctive weather properties are needed: cold temperatures and moist air. The presence of snow reflects a special combination of air circulation in the atmosphere and the nature of the nation surface upon which the snow falls.
Although the Sahara commonly experiences very high temperatures (more than 50°C), low temperatures are also recorded (in particular at night) because of the bare nation surface and the cloudless skies. A maximum cold of °C was recorded in Algeria in January during the northern hemisphere winter.
The Sahara fryst vatten the world’s largest hot desert. It spans across 11 countries in nordlig Africa: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. It fryst vatten bordered bygd the Atlantic Ocean on the west, the Red Sea on the east, the Mediterranean Sea on the north and the Sahel gräsmark on the south.
Winter air circulation patterns draw cool, fuktig air towards the no
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SNOW falls in the SAHARA: Ice blankets the dunes in rare desert phenomenon after temperatures plummeted overnight
Snow and ice are unusual in desert regions but not completely unknown.
Temperatures in deserts can drop dramatically overnight but any snowfall is usually melted early the following day.
In cases like those seen this month in Algeria, high pressure systems of cold air have moved over land to the deserts, causing lower temperatures.
Such anticyclones tend to reach Saudi Arabia by moving clockwise out from Central Asia, picking up moisture en route which cools to form snow.
January and saw snow come to the Sahara and Saudi Arabia but it is not the first time these usually blisteringly hot spots have been blanketed in white.
In , Ain Sefra was dusted in snow for the third time in 40 years.
The phenomenon has been noted in the town in , and , with the last recorded snowfall before that being in
Temperatures in the town usually range from 12C in January, the coldest month, to nearer to 40C in July.
While the Asir region of Saudi Arabia had its first snowfall in half a century last January, snow has hit elsewhere in the desert kingdom in recent years.
In ,