Orange snow has transformed eastern Europe into ‘Mars’; see pics

According to meteorologists, the phenomenon occurs roughly every five years. Steven Keates, a weather forecaster at the UK’s Met Office, told the Independent: “As the sand gets lifted to the upper levels of the atmosphere, it gets distributed elsewhere. “Looking at satellite imagery from NASA, it shows a lot of sand and dust in the atmosphere drifting across the Mediterranean.”

Skiers and snowboarders posted photographs on Instagram and Twitter that gives a glimpse of the Mars-like surface in eastern Europe.

Sahara or Siberia? Orange snow has been reported in eastern Europe and Russia. Saharan storms brought sand and dust across the Mediterranean, which mixed with the snow. This also turned skies an eerie shade of red across Cyprus pic.twitter.com/9LRrQCyC4S

— Met Office (@metoffice) March 26, 2018

Orange snow is falling in Eastern Europe. Sand from desert storms in the Sahara is mixing with snow and rain and falling in countries including Russia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine https://t.co/XX983YZUBN pic.twitter.com/RWCSDgfic5

— Ken Rutkowski (@kenradio) March 26, 2018

It is not the first time eastern Europeans have experienced an eerie snow-tint, reports the Guardian. A similar phenomenon occurred in 2007 when mysterious “oily” orange snow fell across three regions of southern Siberia.