Snowfall in Chilean Atacama Desert, World’s Driest

Snowfall in Chilean Atacama Desert, World’s Driest
Picture taken at the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) La Silla facility in La Higuera, Coquimbo Region, about 600 km north of Santiago in the depths of Chile's bone-dry Atacama desert, in a file photo. (Martin Bernetti/ AFP via Getty Images)

The Chilean city of El Salvador, deep in the Atacama Desert, had a snowfall on Thursday that covered a vast extension of land.

Images from the area showed ice-covered vehicles and children playing in the area in 15 cm (5.9 in) of snow, a region with only a few millimeters of rain each year.

Periodic snowfalls are expected around every four years in the Atacama Desert in June and July, making the snow during August a rare event.

The Atacama desert is considered the driest desert in the world, with an average of 12 to 16 millimeters of rain per year.

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