Is it true that it snowed in Abha, Saudi Arabia?

Arab Weather - Social media users circulated videos showing heavy snowfall over the highlands of Abha, southwest Saudi Arabia. This raised questions about the accuracy of these images, especially since snow is often associated with cold winter weather.

However, according to a review of weather data by Arab Weather, what happened in Abha was not snow, as some believed, but rather hail, a weather phenomenon that is completely different in origin and effect from snow, despite the visual similarity between them in some cases.

The scientific difference between "hail" and "snow"

To understand the nature of what happened, it is necessary to clarify the scientific difference between the two types:

Hail : Formed when water droplets within thunderstorms rise into the extremely cold upper atmosphere, where they freeze around tiny nuclei and form balls or layers of solid ice. These subsequently fall, increasing in size and weight. Hail is often associated with powerful thunderstorms and massive updrafts.

Snow : Forms when water droplets freeze directly in the atmosphere into hexagonal ice crystals, occurring at very low temperatures (near or below zero) throughout all layers of the atmosphere, including the Earth's surface. This requires a complete, cold polar climate system.

Therefore, the phenomenon observed in Abha is not classified as "snow," but rather as a hailstorm, which is relatively common in some of the high mountainous regions of southern Saudi Arabia during the summer, especially with the influx of humid monsoon winds coming from the Arabian Sea, which meet the high terrain and generate dense thunderstorms in the afternoon.