The desert of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, famous for its scorching heat, has recently recorded unusually high temperatures and has been covered with snow, CNN reported on the 20th (local time).
On the 11th, Saudi Arabian photographer Osama Al-Harbi shared a view of the snow-covered Badr Desert near Medina in western Saudi Arabia through social media.
Al-Harbi said the area at the time was “crowded with visitors from far away to see the frozen landscape.” “It is a historic snow storm,” he said, adding that it is a rare winter weather that has not been seen in the past years in the Badr Desert.
In deserts with a large daily temperature difference, it is common for snow to fall in the middle of the night in winter and then to melt when the sun rises, and it is unusual for the snow to not melt even in the middle of the day, the British daily Daily Mail reported.
On the same day, the Saudi state-run Meteorological Center predicted that heavy rain with wind and hail would fall in the Medina area, and visibility would be shorter.
According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States, the average temperature in January in Medina, Saudi Arabia was 12 to 25 degrees Celsius.
Foreign media reported that unusual weather events such as abnormal temperatures and snow storms have been observed repeatedly in Saudi Arabia in recent years.
On the 14th, the temperature of Asir in southwestern Saudi Arabia fell to -2 degrees below zero and snow fell, a rare sight in which the desert was covered in white. It is said that the region recorded the first sub-zero temperature in about 50 years.
In addition, a warning was issued last year when the temperature in northwestern Saudi Arabia, including Tabuk, fell below freezing, and it is reported that it snowed once in April 2019.
Some experts have analyzed that the continuing extreme weather in Saudi Arabia is the effect of global warming. It is explained that the jet stream, which had played a role in trapping the Arctic’s cold wave, has loosened due to global warming and brought a cold wave to Saudi Arabia.
[서울=뉴시스]
