Snowfall was recorded in the Sahara Desert for the first time in 37 years — and the satellite imagery is gorgeous

Segment of the larger
image of snow in the Sahara
NASA

It snowed on December 19 in the Sahara Desert, and NASA’s Landsat
7 satellite was there (or rather, hundreds of miles overhead) to
see it.

The photo comes from Landsat 7’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus
visible-light camera, and depicts the first snowfall recorded in
the massive African desert in 37
years.

The snow-covered area depicted in the photo lies on the northern
end of the desert, near the Moroccan-Algerian border and the town
of Ain Safra. Here’s the full image, which you can click to
enlarge:

NASA

This map shows the approximate region of the photo, with images
from previous years for comparison:

NASA

NASA notes that snow is not all that rare on the African
continent, with regular snowfall on high peaks like Kilimanjaro
and sites where
people ski in South Africa.

Photographer Karim Boucheta was in the right place at the right
time to capture photos of the Saharan snowfall from the ground,
and he’s posted them to Facebook: