Snow only falls in specific areas. For instance, snow does not fall near the equator because it is generally incredibly hot there. On the other hand, places like Antarctica which are very far from the equator tend to have a lot of snowfall. While the entire world seems to be experiencing Global Warming (although scientist will argue that Global Warming creates extreme weather) in one place it was being defied.
On February 18th, in 1979, snow fell in the Sahara Desert. This desert is the world’s largest hot desert. A hot desert will have rain from time to time, but snow falling in the Southern Algerian region of the Sahara is a truly rare occurrence. Being that this is the first and only time such a thing happened only goes to show just how uncommon snow in this desert is.
The snowfall lasted for about half an hour and was gone within a few hours. Snow is a crystalline form of precipitation. What would be rain turns into snow depending on the temperatures in the atmosphere. The Sahara is 3,600,000 sq. miles and is practically desolate of any vegetation, accept for the Nile River and select oases. The Nile River runs through the Sahara and is one of the largest rivers in the world – it is the abundance of water from the river that allows for the survival of vegetation.