What does it mean to snow in August?

Snow in August is a rare weather phenomenon, which only occurs in high altitude areas. In these areas, snowfall in August requires an important condition for the temperature to drop to about zero degrees Celsius, while there will be no snowfall in low altitude areas even if cold air invades.

Topographic features

The formation of snowfall, first of all, there must be cold air activity near the area. At high altitude, coupled with the appearance of cold air, it may snow in summer. In August of 20 13, the snowfall in Xinjiang occurred in Tielimaitidaban (Daban: a mountain surrounded by snow and ice) in Tianshan Mountain at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters.

Snowfall in alpine plateau areas also has local characteristics, because the temperature drops by about 6 degrees Celsius for every kilometer above sea level. High altitude, low temperature, reaching temperature conditions. So this phenomenon often occurs. It's raining at the bottom of the valley and snowing at the top of the mountain. So snowfall in summer has a lot to do with topography.

Distribution area

There is a strong cold air in northern Xinjiang, often called a cold vortex, which may form snowfall. Take the snow flying in Tielimaiti Tunnel in Tianshan, Xinjiang in August of 20 13 as an example: On the afternoon of August 12, the weather forecast issued by Xinjiang Meteorological Observatory showed that there would be light rain and partial heavy rain in most parts of northern Xinjiang, Tianshan Mountain, Hami and western southern Xinjiang from August 13 to August 15. On August 6th/kloc-0, the lowest temperature in Xinjiang was 1 1℃.

However, in the process of cold air falling, it needs an environment below zero degrees Celsius to produce freezing rain or snow. Sometimes two or three degrees Celsius is ok in the case of supercooling, but it is absolutely impossible to snow at more than ten degrees Celsius.