Snow and heavy rain blanket Chile's Atacama Desert amid rare August storms
Unusual August 2026 storms covered Chile's Atacama Desert with snow and intense rain, halting observatories and sparking floods.
A sequence of winter storms in August 2026 brought unprecedented snowfall and rain to Chile's Atacama Desert, one of Earth's driest regions. Landsat 8, Landsat 9 and NASA's Terra satellite recorded snow spreading from the Andes across the desert toward the coast near Antofagasta, while Taltal logged nearly 40 mm of rain in three days—about ten times its typical annual total. Atmospheric scientist René Garreaud explained that a cutoff low detached from an extensive trough spanning the Southern Hemisphere, a setup amplified by a strengthening El Niño that pushes storm tracks closer to the equator.
The heavy snow and strong winds forced the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and other coastal observatories into protective modes. The deluge triggered mudflows and flash flooding, damaging hundreds of homes and impacting thousands of residents. Experts note such extreme events occur only a few times per decade, underscoring the vulnerability of hyper-arid zones to climate anomalies.
Why it matters
The event shows how climate extremes can transform even the driest regions, threatening infrastructure and communities.
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