A number of recent hail and snowfall have led to landscape changes in and around Saudi Arabia, stirring up the excitement of local people and causing a stir on social media, CNN reported on January 21.
Earlier this month, Saudi photographer Osama Al-Habri took aerial photos of Badr Governorate, the southwestern area of the Islamic pilgrimage city of Medina. This area was covered in white snow, causing local people to gather to observe this unusual scene.
Photographer Al-Harbi said that such a strong winter weather in the Badr desert has been a rare phenomenon for many years. He called it a "historic hailstorm".
The Saudi Arabian photographer who captured these scenes on January 11 said that the snow covering the Badr desert has caused many tourists to travel thousands of kilometers to see.
As Al-Harbi arrived in Badr, the Saudi Arabian National Meteorological Center forecast moderate to heavy rain in the Medina area, accompanied by wind and hail.
Winter weather continues this week as snowfall continues in northwestern Saudi Arabia, covering the city of Tabuk, near the border with Jordan and nearby mountains on February 16.
Ahead of Saudi Arabia, photos of the white snow covering the Sahara desert in northwestern Algeria have taken social media by storm. Temperatures in the hottest desert in Naama province, Algeria in the northern part of the Sahara desert and near the border with Morocco have dropped sharply below freezing after the snowfall in early January this year.
In Ain Sefra - the gateway to the Sahara desert - there has been light snowfall after temperatures dropped to -2 degrees Celsius for three consecutive nights over the past week.
The Sahara desert has also recorded snowfall in 2021, 2018, 2017 and 2016. According to Ain Sefra residents, snowfall in December 2016 was the first time since 1979.
