The Driest place On Earth Gets Almost 3 feet of Snow (snowfall, average)

[Cambium]

32 inches of snow fell July 5, 2011 at The Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth. Some weather stations have never received rain there. Mountains are 22,000 feet yet free of Glaciers. Riverbeds have been dry for 120,000 yrs. Avg July temps are 72 and 39 at night but it went under 18 degrees.

Video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=BTIwE7cuPAA


Info on the Desert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Atacama_Desert

[RWood]

Originally Posted by Cambium

32 inches of snow fell July 5, 2011 at The Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth. Some weather stations have never received rain there. Mountains are 22,000 feet yet free of Glaciers. Riverbeds have been dry for 120,000 yrs. Avg July temps are 72 and 39 at night but it went under 18 degrees.

Video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=BTIwE7cuPAA


Info on the Desert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wi​ki/Atacama_Desert

You have to remember elevations. The locations referred to are at a high elevations on the western Andes, and in the north some of these get over 400mm/year of rainfall, though mostly in summer. At lower levels nothing special happened, as I verified by looking at Meteo Chile.

[Cambium]

Looks like snow fell again in the second driest place in the world, the Atacama Desert. heaviest in 3 decades

Desert snow - Weather - Al Jazeera English


Rare snow falls in Atacama desert of Chile - YouTube

[Infamous92]

Whoa, but I imagine that snow is über dry and will melt into almost nothing. I could be wrong, but it's still impressive nonetheless.

[Cambium]

There is a cool Satellite photo of the one from 2 yrs ago but cant find it.

Here's the article from 2 yrs ago since my original post is missing.

Also not sure if its 2nd driest or driest in the world now. Heard different sources on that.

32 inches of snowfall over driest place on earth! | NDTV.com

[green_mariner]

In the mountains, perhaps. Not in places like Arica and Antofagasta.

[RWood]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

In the mountains, perhaps. Not in places like Arica and Antofagasta.

Exactly. They got nothing.

[Bottletree]

doubt it

[RWood]

Arica, Iquique and Antofagasta have had nil rain this year so far - not even a trace. Calama has had 2.5mm, 50% of its YTD average (annual 5.7mm).

[Mac15]

That doesn't even look like 2 inches nevermind 3 foot.