The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is known as the driest desert in the world. Recently, it has rarely snowed. Large areas that have been eroded by natural phenomena for many years are covered with white snow, which is the first wonder seen in 10 years, leaving local residents dumbfounded.
The Atacama ALMA Observatory, located at an altitude of 2,900 meters, shared a series of videos on X on the 26th local time and wrote: “It’s amazing! The driest Atacama Desert in the world is covered with white snow.”
According to the video of the observatory, it can be seen that snow has fallen in a wide area, whether it is the land beside the road or the ground near the facilities, it is clearly visible that snow has fallen.
The ALMA Observatory pointed out that although it occasionally snows in the nearby Chajnantor plateau, which is more than 5,000 meters above sea level, the area where its main facilities are located has not seen snow for 10 years.
According to Azer News, the snowfall is an extremely rare weather phenomenon, with some areas receiving less than 2mm of rainfall per year. The rare snowfall may be due to the accidental combination of cold Antarctic air masses and moisture from the Pacific Ocean.
Raúl Cordero, a climatologist at the University of Santiago in Chile, told AFP that it is too early to attribute the rare snowfall to climate change, but climate models have shown that “such rainfall events will become more frequent in the future.”
In addition, according to the Israeli news e-newspaper Ynet, the Atacama Desert between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean is about 105,000 square kilometers, with almost no rainfall, and some areas have been dry and rainless for hundreds of years.
The local environment is extreme: the soil has a high salt content, the air humidity is almost zero, and the ultraviolet radiation is so strong that the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) uses this place as a test site for Mars mission technology.
AFP also reported that the Atacama Desert has the darkest night sky in the world and has been the preferred location for the world’s most advanced astronomical telescopes for decades.
