Snow in Much of Middle East; Even Cairo Suburbs

A winter storm  that has hit the Middle East has disrupted air travel and created major hardships; Syrian refugees in unheated caps in Lebanon have to cope with ice, cold, and snow along with all the other privations. Photographers as usual are coming up with shots of the Western Wall and other familiar scenes (for the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, see my post Wednesday), and of course, a snowman at the Dome of the Rock (left).

Egypt has also been hit by snow,rain, and sleet. Snow in Alexandria or at St. Catherine's in the mountains of Sinai are not that unusual, but snow has even fallen in the outer suburbs of Cairo. Al-Ahram published these photos of Madinaty, a new town on the eastern outskirts of Cairo:

And looming, threatening clouds over some well-known structures:


And then there's this amazing shot from the Internet:

Update: They say the sphinx pic is fake, a photo from a Tokyo outdoor model. But it did snow in Cairo.


During the blizzard of December 2010, everybody commented on how rare it was to see snow in Damascus and Amman and such. Only two years later, in January 2013, those lacking short-term memories wrote again about how rare snow was. That was 11 months ago . . .