For the first time in living memory, the people in Baghdad, Iraq got to experience firsthand something many had only heard
about or only seen in movies: snow fell for several hours on their city.
On January 11th, many people took the opportunity to whip out their cameras and record this event: some tout it to a mythical sign of times to come, several blame the climate change and others just enjoyed the once in a lifetime experience. You can read some bloggers’ opinions in the roundup written by Salam Adil, Iraq: Snow in Baghdad.
Video uploading site YouTube user SpliceandDice is one of those who blames climate change, and on his 1:51 video he shows some shots of commuters and traffic moving under the light snow.
Aliii313, posted a 1:20 second video of the light snowfall. On this video´s description he writes:
this is 1st time in history a light snow fall in baghdad wow, in Jan,11 2008 at 7:00 am…this vedio recorded by mohamed tarik(my brother) in our house garden in ZAYONA-BAGHDAD..ah and the actror was yahia tarik(walk in Boulevard).
Another YouTube user, hq9sctgd, has 3 different short videos of the snow falling as well. Following, is one of them:
For me, it is certainly a bit strange to see snowflakes in the foreground and palm trees in the background, as it can be seen on YSDallali´s 49 second video.
On user aowsalmsafir´s channel you´ll be able to see several other short videos of the snowflakes falling on the palm tree filled background in Baghdad.Tigernip uploaded content from Fox News, where the newscaster reports that the snow had a deeper effect: there were no reports of violence during the morning and early afternoon, as if the whole city just had gotten together to admire the spectacle. You can see that video here.
Snowflake image taken by CaptPiper and used according to Creative Commons License.
6 comments
Thanks for sharing those videos Juliana. It certainly is surreal seeing snow flakes and palm trees in one shot!
Snow flakes indeed – but doesn’t look like the snowy white landscape I expected. Streets just look wet… :-)
Beautiful!! First snow in Baghdad ever? Really? Peaceful, is it not?