Jordan | Snow in the Dead Sea and an accumulation of up to a meter in the capital, Amman!

Arabia Weather - The Levant region, including the Kingdom, is naturally affected during the winter by air depressions as a result of the nature of the weather systems affecting during the winter, and from these air depressions, polar air depressions may form that are accompanied by snowfall on the mountain highlands.

The weather specialists at the Arab Weather Center said that the Kingdom is accustomed to receiving snow in the winter, especially the high mountain highlands, and sometimes extremely cold seasons affect the Kingdom accompanied by snow storms that include all the mountain highlands, as happened in January 2008 and February 2015. And other years in which snow falls on all the highlands of the Kingdom.

However, it is unusual for snow to fall in the Kingdom on the Jordanian or Al-Shafaa Goriya areas due to its low elevation above sea level and its warm weather. However, in a very rare event, snow fell on areas that are not accustomed to receiving snow in the Kingdom.

The Blizzard of 1950 and the Dead Sea Snows

According to the archival data available to us at the Arab Weather Center, the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean region was affected on February 6, 1950, by an air depression accompanied by an extremely cold, polar air mass. This resulted from a direct surge of an air mass considered the coldest in the region’s modern history, as it This led to a significant and unprecedented drop in temperatures, and as a result of the frigid polar winds crossing over the water body, an air depression was formed accompanied by a very cold and humid air front, which led to the fall and accumulation of snow on all areas whose height is more than (-200) meters above the surface. The sea in the Levant, which also included the northern Jordan Valley and parts of the central Jordan Valley, and snowfall extended at intervals to the Dead Sea area, which is (-407) meters above sea level, a rare event!

Large accumulation of snow in the capital, Amman

Information that has been circulated and archived since that time stated that the accumulation of snow in the Jordanian capital, Amman, amounted to about a meter, and in the capital, Jerusalem, the accumulation was approximately 75 cm, and in the city of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast, snow accumulated by 50 cm.

Huge losses due to the snow storm

According to archival data, about 70 people died due to extreme cold in both Jordan and Palestine during that snow, most of whom were children in the Palestinian refugee camps spread after the Nakba of 1948 AD.

Below are archive photos from the rare snowstorm: