|
Author
|
Topic: Rare Snow Blankets Middleast
|
Waterdog
Advanced Member
Member # 24
|
posted
Now if you're really looking for coincidences, the same thing happened here in Texas, the President's home state, yesterday and last night. The ground is completely covered with ice that fell all day yesterday and last night and won't be melting until around noon. It's probably icy in Palestine, too.
--------------------
So let us go forth to Him outside the camp (Heb 13:11-14)
 
Posts: 374 | From: Austin, TX | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged | 
|
|
Caretaker
Advanced Member
Member # 36
|
posted
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63828-2003Feb25.html
Rare Snow Storm Sweeps Across Mideast
By KARIN LAUB
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 25, 2003; 5:49 AM
A rare snow storm swept across the Middle East on Tuesday, closing highways and schools in Israel, Lebanon and Jordan, cutting power and blanketing the steeples and palm trees of Jerusalem in wintry white.
Forecasters said the storm will continue through Wednesday and is expected to deliver the heaviest snow since 1950. By midmorning Tuesday, one foot had fallen in Jerusalem. Snow also covered northern Israel, the hills of the West Bank and the mountains of Lebanon.
Israelis and Palestinians welcomed the respite from a 29-month-old conflict that has claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Many cherished a rare feeling of normalcy; for a change, the weather led the news.
"It's a moment of relief for all of us," said Avital, an Israeli woman in her 20s, as she built a snowman - complete with a broom and carrot nose - on a traffic island in downtown Jerusalem.
Just to the south, in Bethlehem in the West Bank, residents enjoyed the idea of being kept indoors by the weather rather than the customary Israeli military curfews. "It (the snow) is making us happy," said Hana Hania, 25, who lives across from Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. At the shrine, marking Jesus' traditional birthplace, monks wearing gloves wiped clean the main gate.
In Israel, Lebanon and Jordan, unaccustomed to winter storms, the snow closed major thoroughfares, including the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem and the Beirut-Damascus highways.
The highway linking the Lebanese and Syrian capitals, which snakes through mountain passes, is one of Lebanon's busiest and its main link with the Arab world. Authorities closed the road at the first mountain ridge, a 15-minute drive from Beirut.
Jerusalem residents awoke to a silent city. Streets were deserted, except for a few snow plows and the occasional pedestrian. Tree branches came crashing down under the weight of the snow.
At the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, a lone worshipper wearing the traditional black hat and coat of ultra-Orthodox Jews pressed against the large stones in prayer, his black beard covered by snow flakes.
Jewish seminary students from Detroit snapped pictures of each other against the backdrop of the Wall. "This (the snow) makes it more spiritual at the Kotel," said Gadi Bernstein, referring to the Wall by its Hebrew name. In downtown Sacher Park, teenagers threw snow balls.
Schools, offices and most businesses were closed in Jerusalem and its hilly suburbs, and public transportation came to a halt. Israel's parliament was to convene Tuesday, as planned, with legislators brought to the Knesset by all-terrain vehicles.
The storm forced the closure of dozens of gas mask distribution centers where Israelis have been lining up to get new filters for their masks, in preparation for a possible missile attack by Iraq.
Meteorologists issued flood warnings for Israel's coastal plain and the northern Negev Desert, while Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat was untouched by the storm.
In Lebanon, the storm cut power in parts of Beirut and other areas. Several houses had to be evacuated in northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in the east after cracks appeared in buildings. Schools in mountain areas were closed.
Mudslides were reported in some areas in the north and the south and rivers burst their banks in other regions. Officials opened drains at the Qaroun Reservoir on the Litani River in the southern Bekaa Valley to relieve the pressure on the dam after waters had risen to a level unseen in decades.
The storm also dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of northern Jordan. At least 30 motorists were stranded on Amman's hilly streets, which were covered with ice and snow. Several international flights were delayed at Amman's Queen Alia International Airport.
--------------------
A Servant of Christ,
Drew
1 Tim. 3:
16: And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh..
Posts: 3978 | From: Council Grove, KS USA | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged |
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
