CRAZY WEATHER - IT SNOWS IN DRIEST PLACE ON EARTH - CHILE'S ATACAMA DESERT

Chile's Atacama desert is such a dry place that it is used as a setting for scientific experiments mimicking exploration in other planets. 

The desert is also known for being the location of the world's largest telescope, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Residents of San Pedro de Atacama, around 750 miles north from the capital Santiago, say the downfall was the heaviest in three decades for the area, described as the driest hot desert on Earth. 

 

A few areas get as little as 1mm and some weather stations have never had any at all.  At night, temperatures can drop to as low as −25C in the zone of Ollague, while during the day it can reach between 25-30C in the shade.  It is so arid that even mountains reaching as high as 22,589 ft are completely free of glaciers.

Read more, see pictures and video of this moonscape covered with snow - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2403754/Chiles-Atacama-desert-hit-SNOW--fears-FLOOD.html

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Extreme Places - Atacama Desert

Most of the precipitation that comes to the Atacama is in the form of fog that blows in the from the Pacific. Fog is essentially very low clouds, consisting of water vapor cooling and beginning to condense. If you've ever been in fog you know that it can leave you a little moist. When the air temperature reaches dew point the water vapor in the air condenses to leave little droplets of water behind. The few things that are able to survive in the Atacama live on the combined moisture from fog and dew.  Since the Andes is a volcanically active mountain range, the magma beneath the ground will heat the groundwater in certain places causing geysers to erupt.

Read about it - http://www.extremescience.com/driest.htm


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Atacama's Plants and Animals

Believe or not, living things exist on this desert.

Read more about that and  about climate, geography, and other aspects of Atacama - http://atacamainformation.weebly.com/atacamas-plants-and-animals.html

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Photo Gallery of Atacama Desert

The most haunting place on Earth

See pictures here - http://www.livescience.com/31911-atacama-desert-chile-photos.html

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Link to this post - http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2013/08/crazy-weather-it-snows-in-driest-place.html


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