Amman snow in March.. and yellow instead of white!

ArabiaWeather.com - It may surprise many who read the title of this news, but this was a reality in the year 1998 AD.

In the details received from the archive section of the Department of Meteorology and Weather Forecasting at the ArabiaWeather Regional Center, the region was on a date with a winter-style snow storm on March 18, 1998!

Where a deep depression formed, the deepest in the modern records of the region since the year 1920 AD, with a surface pressure of about 985 millibars in the center around the island of Cyprus, on March 16, causing a sharp rise in temperatures in both the cities of Amman and Jerusalem, as the maximum approached 27 degrees Celsius, and at the same time a strong sandstorm came across the deserts of Libya and Egypt towards the region, and reduced the horizontal visibility to less than 500 meters at the main airports in the region! It was accompanied by strong southwesterly winds of about 100 km/h.

Until now, the situation may seem normal to the honorable readers. But what is unique in that air system is the coincidence of all these events with the accumulation of a very cold air mass of polar origin in the Balkans and southeastern Europe, resulting from the positioning of a solid and stubborn air elevation over northern and western Europe.

And by virtue of the deep center of the Cypriot depression (Khamsini origin), it worked to withdraw all the polar air towards Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean, and the region was affected by an unforgettable snow storm on March 18-1998.

The snow stats are as follows:

1- Snow accumulated over the heights of 800 meters, that is, in large areas of Al-Quds Al-Sharif and the capital, Amman, which amounted to about 10 centimeters.

2- Snow accumulated over 1,000 meters, with an amount of 25 cm or more in some areas, including Sweileh and west of the Jordanian capital, Amman.

It has disrupted public life and official institutions in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

The temperatures dropped by more than 28 degrees Celsius within 48 hours, so that the snow was yellow (because the different layers of the atmosphere "in the eastern Mediterranean" that the snow crystal crossed were saturated with the dust of the deserts of Africa)!

The Archives Department apologizes for providing you with photos related to this blizzard, as they are not currently available.