The memory of the autumn blizzard Alexa who turned the tables on the snows of winter
Weather of Arabia - From December 10-14, 2013, the Kingdom was affected by a rare and unique weather system, the results of which were strong winds, heavy precipitation and unparalleled heavy snowfall.
In the details, the signs of weakness began on the strong storm that hit the Levant region with the hours of Saturday afternoon, as the weather became remarkably foggy in the mountains with moderate and intermittent snowfall.
We return to the story of this storm in some detail, as large areas of the European continent were affected by a solid and stubborn air rise at that time, as a result of which a very cold and polar air mass rushed directly from the Arctic Circle towards the Black Sea, then Turkey, and later to the eastern Mediterranean region The Mediterranean, including the Kingdom, where it was placed above us for two days.
Simultaneously with all that, the prevailing air systems in the region as a whole allowed the birth of a deep depression that initially centered over Syria and then the development of a new depression centered over the Lebanese territories, which contributed to the enhancement of rain and snow precipitation, and we now list what made this depression special and extreme. And by default:
snow
The northern highlands, in addition to the central and some southern highlands, were affected by heavy snowfall with the hours of Wednesday night, and the rain continued intermittently during the day on Thursday, and with the early hours of the night a cold air front was formed in the south of the West Bank, which moved in the northeastern direction to reach northern Jordan and the Balqa heights and the north of the capital, causing a large accumulation of snow Especially in the first, where the thickness of the snow exceeded 50 cm in heights of more than 900 meters, and that front included the heights of the northern West Bank and more severely, according to the Arab Weather website.
With the arrival of the main front accompanying the new air depression, snow precipitation became regular and intensified over most parts of the Kingdom, Palestine, southern Syria and Lebanon, so that the thickness of the snow exceeded two meters in the Ajloun Mountains, as well as the case in the heights west of Nablus, while it approached one meter in the Balqa heights and northern Amman in addition to the Tafila mountains. And Hebron in the southern West Bank, and all these numbers are record for the first half of December, and the region did not know the same, even in the winter season in recent years, back until February of the famous snowy year 1992.
wind and temperature
At the beginning of the deep depression and before the passage of its three main fronts, strong winds blew on more than 5 occasions that touched the 90-100 km/h barrier in many Jordanian cities, including the capital Amman. It is noteworthy that the stormy winds did not subside as usual with the snowfall, but rather increased in intensity. Which created extreme snow storms. Wind gusts reached 129 km/h at the Al-Taf/Al-Balqa monitoring station, and their rates touched the 80 km/hr barrier!
As for the temperatures, they were not very extreme from zero degrees Celsius in most regions except for the Sharah Mountains, while the lowest ones in the latter dropped to below -10 degrees Celsius, especially on Sunday night, in a new record, God willing, and some Jordanian cities, including the capital Amman, recorded with limits -2 to -4 Celsius.
In general, the current storm is not considered normal, as it came to an area far from the North Pole and at the end of the autumn season, before the actual astronomical winter entered in late December, but it achieved results on the ground in many areas that exceeded those achieved by winter storms from The high level in recent years, especially in the highlands of the north of the country, up to the famous storm 25-2-1992, while the 25-2-2003 storm recorded a similar accumulation of snow in the north of the capital Amman, but increased in February 1992 by 20-40 centimeters.
Browse on the official website