Snow Falls in Jerusalem, Takes People and Authorities by Surprise

A powerful snowstorm recently took both local authorities and ordinary folks in Israel's capital city, Jerusalem, quite by surprise.

Apparently, it's been years since this city last witnessed this much snow piling up on its streets. Faced with these peculiar weather conditions, authorities were left with no choice except ask people to remain indoors and only leave their homes if they had urgent matters to solve.

The Jerusalem Post reports that, according to Elisha Peleg, one of the city officials in charge of making head and tail of this situation, “The downtown area is bathed in white.”

“The elders of Jerusalem don't remember such a snowstorm in years,” Elisha Peleg went on to add.

Information made available to the public thus far says that roughly 20 centimeters (about 8 inches) of snow are now covering Jerusalem's central area, and that other parts of the city must figure out a way to deal with even thicker snow coverage.

As was to be expected, this powerful snowstorm ended up bringing traffic to a halt, seeing how many roads and streets became impracticable. Furthermore, schools and kindergartens had to be closed.

Starting Thursday afternoon, weather conditions took a turn for the better and traffic was resumed to a certain extent.

Interestingly enough, these peculiar weather manifestations also sparked a debate concerning their underlying causes.

Thus, some claim that the snow must be labeled as a divine sign, whereas others are firmly convinced that climate change should be listed as the major “culprit.”

In all fairness, the city of Chicago just managed to set a new snowless record, Australian meteorologists just had to add two new colors to their temperature charts, and the year 2012 was officially declared the hottest on record for the US, so those leaning towards the second theory might actually be on to something.