Snow Day

Three days of solid rain turned to snow last night and today, as the temperatures in Amman dipped perilously close to freezing. As I write this, in fact, the temperature in Amman is 36 degrees Fahrenheit, which is one degree warmer than Minneapolis. After it finally stopped around a foot of snow had fallen on parts of Jordan, with our area of Amman--we live in the lower elevations--having received 4 to 5 inches. The higher parts of the city are mere minutes away, and no doubt they received the higher amounts reported. It was a very big event for the region, and a local meteorologist called it the "fiercest storm to hit the Mideast in the month of January in at least 30 years." Of course the whole city basically shut down--even our dependable local market was closed--but many people took the chance to stroll through their neighborhood, build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other, strangers included. After several days of driving rain and now snow, our apartment seems to have reached some kind of a climatic breaking point, with water breaking through and collecting on the floor in our front sunroom and back porch, entire walls wet from condensation, and finally, this morning, frozen pipes and the resulting partially functioning plumbing. Below are some pictures of our rare snow day.

 

The bottom four pictures are not ours, but were taken from the Facebook page "Diwan Baladna." They are of various places in Amman, except for the last picture, which is from Wadi Rum, the famous desert in the southern part of the country.