Russia and East Europe see snow turning orange: Here’s why

While Russia was still struggling to come to terms with the fire tragedy in a shopping mall in Kemerovo in Siberia which killed several people, many of whom were children, the resort city of Sochi which hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014 has come up with an amazing experience for the skiers and tourists.

For the past few days, the mountains of the west Russian city has turned dusty red which has made many say that it looked more like Mars. But why has the mountain suddenly turned reddish?

It is because of the dust blowing in from the Sahara Desert in northern Africa that the white snow has turned orange in a number of east European countries. Besides Russia, the skiers in Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine too saw the unusual orange snow.

The phenomenon of dust being blown from the Sahara into the east European countries via Greece was also caught by NASA's satellite. Meteorologist Eric Leister said "the jet stream dipped southwards across Europe and into northern Africa. This caused the storm track to also be further south with a series of storms crossing the Mediterranean Sea, a USA Today report said.

One BBC report said that such phenomenon happens every five years although the amount of sand was higher this time, making it more vivid. People also reported of having sand in their mouths, the report added.

It is however not the first time in the history of mankind that coloured snow has been spotted. In 1755, blood snowfall was seen in the Alps while in 1810, Paris witnessed a shower of red snow. In 1895, pink snowfall was reported from Colorado in the US while 16 years before that, yellow snow was seen in Bethlehem. Black snow has also been spotted in the past while orange snow was seen in Siberia in Russia in 2007. Most of these colours were made by pollution, it has been said.

OneIndia News