On 19 December 2016, snow fell on the orange dunes outside Aïn Séfra, a town in northwestern Algeria sometimes called the "gateway to the desert". Photographer Karim Bouchetata went out with his camera and caught thin white streaks tracing every curve of the sand, pictures that were soon shared around the world. By the next day the snow had gone.
Aïn Séfra: a high desert town on the Sahara's edge
Aïn Séfra lies in Naâma Province, between the Atlas Mountains and the northern edge of the Sahara, close to the border with Morocco. Around 35,000 people live in the town, according to NASA Earth Observatory. Its altitude explains a great deal: the town sits at about 1,081 metres above sea level, and its climate is classed as cold desert (Köppen BWk). Summers are hot, but winter nights are cold, and the surrounding hills rise higher still.
The settlement has deep roots. Local tradition says its ksar, the old fortified village, was built around 1586, and the modern town grew from a French military post established in 1882, with the railway arriving in 1887.
The December 2016 snowfall in pictures
Bouchetata's photographs work because so much colour survives the snow. The covering was light, so the orange sand shows through between the white bands, and the wind-sculpted ridges of the dunes stand out more sharply than they ever do under plain sunshine. In the wider frames, dark rocky ridges add a third layer behind the dunes, while buildings and vegetation show that this was a lived-in landscape, not an empty sea of sand.
NASA's Landsat 7 satellite photographed the same snowfall from orbit on 19 December 2016, showing a thin veil of white over the dunes near the Morocco–Algeria border, southwest of the town.
Where "the first snow in 37 years" came from
The headline that spread with these images refers to Aïn Séfra itself. The town's first recorded snowfall was a light fall on 18 February 1979, and NASA's 2016 report named that as the last recorded snow before December 2016, a gap of 37 years. In its January 2018 report, NASA added that the 2016 event was the second measurable snowfall near the town in about three years, a reminder that local records in remote desert areas are patchy.
Since then, snow has come back several times. On 20 January 2017 a heavy fall left up to a metre of snow in places around the town, and snow was also recorded in 2018, 2021 and 2022.
Snow returns: 2018 and 2023
On 8 January 2018 snow settled again on the desert around Aïn Séfra. News and social media reported 10 to 30 centimetres on high ground above 1,000 metres, and NASA's Landsat 8 captured white-capped hills and dune crests. As in 2016, warmer air melted most of it within a day.
On 24 January 2023, heavy snow fell on the peaks of Béchar Province, farther southwest in Algeria. The Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite photographed the snowy mountains around the town of Benzireg the next day.
How can it snow in the desert?
A desert is defined by how little rain or snow it receives, not by heat. The Sahara is mostly hot and dry, but its northern rim includes high ground where winter air is cold. Snow needs two things to come together: freezing air and enough moisture. On the high ground around Aïn Séfra, the two occasionally coincide in winter. The Atlas Mountains even have ski resorts, and heavy snow covered Morocco's Atlas in 2005 and 2012.
What makes desert snow so short-lived is the same thing that makes it photogenic: strong sun and dry air. Snow at lower elevations usually melts quickly, so a photographer needs to be out at first light to catch it.
For another weather event that transforms a famous landscape, see how a Grand Canyon cloud inversion fills the canyon with fog, and for snow with a lot more movement, watch the 2017 Amtrak snow-wave video from Rhinecliff.
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