If you’re ever told that something will happen when it snows in the Sahara, feel free to point to 36 years ago, when precisely that happened for the first time in recorded history (and one of only twice your humble correspondent could uncover) on February 18, 1979.

Any readers from Boston might find this especially unimpressive at the moment, but for everyone else, the sight of camels standing in snowy sand in southern Algeria is just pretty darn cool…as well as a sign t...hat no event should be dismissed as completely impossible. (AWC is unable to state for certain whether this particular camel roamed the Sahara during the 1979 snowfall or the more recent one mentioned later…so let him represent the Platonic Snow Camel on the cave wall of our hearts.)

The 1979 snowstorm, described as "the first in living memory" by the New York Times, brought traffic to a standstill in southern Algeria. It was out of the ordinary but also brief, lasting about a half-hour. Within a few hours, the snow was gone (which anyone from Boston should DEFINITELY find impressive). AWC has uncovered one other time when the Saharan lowlands received snow, this time in western Algeria on January 18, 2012. (Snow is a regular event in Saharan mountain ranges.)

Whether the 2012 snowfall is a harbinger of a new world of climate-change induced crazy weather -- where penguins fly over the desert and volcanoes spew purple lava at the South Pole -- or just another aberration remains to be seen. For now, snow in the Sahara remains a pretty cool sight, and a reminder that this crazy world we share is something we claim to understand at our peril. We don’t really know what can happen, and the possibilities are beyond us. If camels can handle snow, you can go out and tackle whatever has you nervous today. (By the way, do you guys know what day it is?)

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