We always associate deserts with extremely hot areas of the planet where, in addition, rainfall is practically nil. In fact, according to the definition of the Royal Spanish Academy, a desert is a "sandy or stony territory, which, due to the almost total lack of rainfall, lacks vegetation or has very little vegetation". But can it snow in arid deserts like the Sahara? Although it seems impossible, yes.
According to the records that memory and technology reach, only once has it snowed in one of the most famous and arid deserts on the planet, that of the Sahara. It happened on February 18, 1979 and occurred on the Libyan border with Algeria and Tunisia. There a cold air pocket was located that caused a snowfall such that "it paralyzed the traffic of some populations " point out some chronicles of the time.
As pointed out by the SINC scientific news agency, in deserts the days are usually very hot, with temperatures that can reach 50 degrees, but the nights are quite cold, with minimums that can be below 0 degrees. In certain situations, the arrival of a lot of cold air coincides with humidity, giving rise to precipitation, which can exceptionally be in the form of snow.
