It actually has snowed in the Sahara Desert twice since 1979 — VIDEO
No snow for 37 years in the Sahara? Not quite.
These pictures capture snow scattered across the Sahara desert in Algeria. pic.twitter.com/aUzaZY4ysp
— AJ+ (@ajplus) December 21, 2016
Multiple news sources including CNN and the Washington Post have said the Sahara Desert hasn’t received snowfall since a brief blizzard in February 1979, but according to the Weather Channel, the sandy stretches of North Africa received dustings of snow in 2005 and 2012.
NASA captured an aerial shot of blankets of snow covering Algeria and Morocco in January 2005.
“This rare storm—the worst in over 50 years—brought chaos to the roadways of the normally arid region. As the clouds began to move away on January 28,” NASA wrote in a post. “NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images of the snow.”
Between the months of December and February, the lack of humidity forces nighttime temperatures to drop dramatically, the Conservation Institute reports.
“The High Atlas Mountains that are near there actually block a lot of moisture from this area. It’s why it’s one of the dryest places on earth,” Weather Channel Meteorologist Kait Parker said. “But snow can occur with some strong polar fronts. It does often fall below freezing.”
Check out the video above.
