The Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) on the Landsat 7 satellite acquired this natural-color image of snow in North Africa on December 19, 2016. This scene shows an area near the border of Morocco and Algeria, south of the city of Bouarfa and southwest of Ain Sefra.
Aïn Séfra a town in the edge of the Sahara desert received some snow fall few weeks ago, quite a rare occurrence in the Sahara.The snow covered the sand dunes- a beautiful sight to behold. The town is also known as the 'Gateway to the desert'.
Aïn Séfra 小镇，被称为「沙漠之门」前几个星期发现了沙漠中下大雪事件，这是很少见的事情。
The snow is reported to have been 40 cm deep. It however melted owing to rising high temperatures. The Independent reports that, in 1979, a snowstorm lasting half an hour stopped traffic. Two years ago, snow settled for around a day, and the town saw snowfall again last year and possibly many more times.
该雪有40厘米高。但是因为沙漠的温度高很快就融化了。在1979年的时候这里也下过大雪导致交通问题。
There are speculations as to how many times It has snowed in the Sahara because of the vastness of the area and the availability of a few monitoring facilities. Stefan Kröpelin, a geologist at the University of Cologne in Germany who has been researching the Saharan climate for years have been quoted in the New York Times saying the challenge in the Sahara is the humidity and not the temperatures.
在这里没有正确的数据统计下过几次雪。
"The Sahara is as large as the United States, and there are very few weather stations," he added. "So it's ridiculous to say that this is the first, second, third time it snowed, as nobody would know how many times it has snowed in the past unless they were there."
“撒哈拉有差不多美国那么大，这里气象台也很少，所以不能确定大概下过几次雪”，科隆大学的地质学家Stefan Kropelin说。
One local resident told the publication that this is the fifth time the desert is seeing snow.
一个当地人告诉记者这是第五词看到雪。
According to Snopes, a fact checking website, Aïn Séfra has experienced snowfall in the past generating significant media coverage due to the seemingly counterintuitive nature of snow falling in a desert. This is attributed to the assumption that deserts refer to average temperatures when in fact it is lack of precipitation.
Snopes reports that about a year ago, a local Sekkouri Kamel, who lives in Aïn Séfra, posted a series of photographs to his Facebook account, some of which were subsequently shared by National Geographic.
去年一个当地人Sekkouri Kamel在它的书脸账号发布了几个在这里的雪的照片。一些被国家地理分享的。
In January 2012, the Algerian TV channel Central TV covered snowfall in the same town which it described as "an exceptional natural phenomenon in this Saharan region." The Denver Channel 9 NBC station also reported that 24-hour cold spell had brought snow and rain to the region.
在2012年，阿尔及利亚中央电视台也报道了在这里的这个特别事件。
The Sahara is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic.
撒哈拉是热沙漠里面最大，世界第三大沙漠，第一和第二分别为南极洲和北极洲。
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