VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA — Recurring snowfalls on one of the hottest places on Earth stems from global warming, says a top Russian meteorologist.
The Russian News Agency reports that on January 7, a blanket of snow fell on the Sahara desert, near the northern Algerian town of Ain Sefra.
The Sahara has been known to get as hot as 122 degrees Fahrenheit during the day. But while temperatures drop at night, it's unusual to see snow due to the dry air.
In 1979, snow fell in the area for 30 minutes. It was 37 years before the next snowfall, but only a year passed between then and the most recent one, which saw 15 inches of snow cover.
According to Roman Vilfand, Head of Russia's Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, the frequency of such an unusual weather phenomenon is evidence that global warming is on the rise. He adds that the same is true the current cold spell in the eastern US, an unusually warm Russian winter, and rainfall and flooding in Western Europe
With the state of the climate as dismal as it is and with no signs of improvement, guess there'll be more extreme weather in our future. Yikes.
