Snow in Somalia - In June

Now whats stranger snowfall in Somalia (Africa) or snowfall in June?

Considering that snowfall has never been reported to ever have fallen in Somalia........there's a first for everything I guess.

No more info than what is posted which was found thru google news...

Snowfall in Somalia reported
Wed. June 01, 2005 10:36 am.

The first snowfall on this part of the world has claimed one life and caused extensive damage to properties. Puntland, northeastern part of Somalia has never recorded snowfall before last night when snow storms with high winds destroyed homes in Rako town.

The storm left a blanket of snow on the ground, something residents had never seen in their lives before. Aside from this unexplained snowfall on this tropical land, Somalia has experienced very strange weather in the past few months.

Floods killed people and forced rivers to overflow banks in almost all parts of the country. Many cities from Hargeisa in the north to Baladweyn in central were affected badly by heavy rains and floods. Many people were killed and thousands of livestock washed away by this strange weather. The country is still struggling to recover from last month’s killer weather.

With no effective central government, Somalia doesn’t have weather prediction or climate monitoring systems in place. Somalis think this unusual weather and last night’s previously unheard of snowfall are part of the global warming phenomena.

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[edit on 2-6-2005 by quadricle]

This is amazing. Things are definitly changes in the world as far as climate goes.

great find, thanks for sharing

now the rest of the world can go back to saying "there's nothing going on with our climate"

Originally posted by worldwatcher
great find, thanks for sharing

now the rest of the world can go back to saying "there's nothing going on with our climate"

you're very welcome.

I agree, the weather is definatly "changing" right before our very eyes, not sure tho, if these changes are mother-earths intentions or signs of turbulant times ahead - climate wise that is....

I'm suprised however at the lack of footage or pix of the Somali event.....haven't been able to locate any yet

For those of you that don't know where this place is you can find it just north of the equator. Yup.. 10N. That is closer to the equator than Puerto Rico.

,a qote from above,


With no effective central government, Somalia doesn’t have weather prediction or climate monitoring systems in place.

.............

I belive i was reading in a post about us weather burer or somthing
comeplaing about the internet. thay could help them(Somalia) and make a buck,

Found this thread when doing a search about this topic. I found that article on another site and was searching for corroboration on it. I can't find anything other than that article.

The "official" climate sites I looked at state that there is no snowfall in Somalia.

Did anyone find anything to back it up? I am not a skeptic, I believe we are seeing plenty of changes in our weather with all the implications associated with it. I just want to be sure of the facts around this.

I think this covers it pretty well.

www.storm2k.org...

It make me wonder if something got lost in the translation from the eyewitness accounts to what got reported.

Example... it was reported that the ground looked as if it were covered with snow.

Ends up being... it snowed.

I think most of us have seen the pics after hail storms have dumped massive amounts of small hail stones. Looks like snow but isn't.

Here is where the "but" comes in. Usually you get hail like that when there is a very shallow layer of freezing (or below) air. It allows more hail to develop and rapidly. Hail produced in the BIG storms could never be mistaken for snow. The little pea sized stones that accumulate to an inch or more can be mistaken. But when has anyone seen this kind of hail produced in a very warm region? That kind of activity is much more common in northern states in early spring.

Nice find Indy, thanks.

Although it will possibly turn out not to be exactly snow, from the accounts seems to be either a very rare type of hail storm or a large "snowflake" (some 2" across) activity in a small area of Somalia Africa, that does not have any operational weather monitoring equipment in place.

I've read somewhere that those areas in Africa are prone to some type of hail activity now and then , mostly in the elevated mountanous regions, so it's just possible some weird type of "event" happened here.

Sounds reasonable Indy. Could well be skewed reporting or translation. Would like to find a difinitive answer rather than speculation either way.

I remember back in the 80's I think that it snowed in Israel once... a few inches that soon melted so no surprise here...

This is interesting, I followed some excellent info posted on another site regarding the conditions of Somalia on June 1st 2005, the image is taken form Nasa's Rapidfire Modis sytem,

check it out:



source

those swirl clouds are extremely strange to me, is that normal?


alternative image

I've seen clouds like that before on sat pictures of the Atlantic - forget the cause but they're not that unusual.

I concur with the guys on Storm2K - this was almost certainly hail, which even in England sometimes gets mistaken for snow!

I think those are heat swirls in the clouds. I have seen some killer pics of what heat can do to the clouds. I have seen a tstorm pic that looked like the icecream on a Dairy Queen cone.

hmmm....

anyway... So if this was indeed hail which it most likely was then what would have set the events in motion to create a storm so rare in these areas that it would be mistaken for snow? From what I have seen the small accumulating hail usually takes place in the northern regions or in the early months when there is a shallow layer of cold air. This took place near the equator at the first of june. I'm sure it could happen but apparently it is very rare.