Does it snow in Africa? Despite being well known for its vast desert, the Sahara, the fact that the equator runs through its middle, and its warm jungles and teeming savannahs, it does snow in Africa. While this snow doesn’t settle on the plains and places just mentioned, there are plenty of other locations that snow can fall and accumulate.
Although known for its warmth, this fact alone does not make it impervious to cold weather. Also, with many mountain ranges of impressive heights, these peaks escape the grasp of warmth that holds the lower lands so desperately in order to allow for freezing temperatures as the elevation increases. Not only does snow fall at the higher elevations, but remains all year round, compacting to form invaluable glaciers that work their way down the mountain slopes.
The glaciers of the mountains are not only an important identification factor for proving the existence of snow in Africa (which wasn’t that far-fetched or unknown to begin with), but are the sources for many of the great rivers that run throughout it, including the Nile. Without these frozen, slow melting sources, many of Africa’s rivers would be seasonal and based on rain alone, which would quickly lead to evaporation and decimation of wildlife species that depend on the water to survive. Already as much of half of the Nile evaporates before it reaches its northern destination at the Mediterranean Sea.
Apart from the elevations of the highest mountains, snowfall can occur in the southern end of the continent, sometimes falling when frigid winter temperatures pulled by air masses from Antarctica wafts over. Although any significant snowfall is rare, it isn’t impossible. The probable cause of this colder weather is likely due to the counterclockwise movement of the Atlantic Ocean currents between South America and Africa. As the cold waters of the Antarctic Ocean are pulled upwards towards the African coast, colder weather patterns can be pulled as well, carrying moisture along with frigid weather in order to form snow. More moisture provided by the warmer currents and air systems of the east from the Indian Ocean current system may meet with the colder western air flows in order to provide more substantial accumulations.
While not extensive snowfall – not long to last – it is some. Whether just a dusting in the southern portion of the continent, or lasting and heavy snows across the mountain peaks, snow falls in Africa.
