Thirty two inches of snow in one of the driest places on earth

Russ Steele

My mother and father lived for two years in Iquiqe Chile. My dad was supervising the building of sardine fishing boats in the early 60s. They visited the Atacama Desert, where the average rain fall is less than .004 inches per year, often going without rainfall for years. Some places in the Atacama Desert have not had rainfall for over 400 years. According to my mother,  "the air sucked the moisture from your skin."

A recent cold wave in Chile brought 32 inches of snow to the Atacama desert. The region has not seen this amount of snow in close to 20 years.

Yes, this was weather but it may be a precursor to climate change over the next 20 years. Stay Tuned.