For the second time (click here) in three years, snow has accumulated in the desert near the northern Algerian town of Aïn Séfra. Sometimes called the “gateway to the desert,” the town of 35,000 people sits between the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains.
According to news and social media accounts, anywhere from 10 to 30 centimeters (4 to 12 inches) of snow accumulated on January 8, 2018, on some higher desert elevations (1000 meters or more above sea level). Social media photos showed citizens sliding down snow-covered sand dunes. Warming temperatures melted much of it within a day.
On January 8, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured the data for these natural-color images of the snow in the Sahara Desert. At the top of the page, the Landsat 8 image was draped over a global digital elevation model, built from data acquired by NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. The second and third images provide nadir (straight-down) closeups of the region, where snow covered dry mountaintops and the crests of tall sand dunes.
