The northern part of the country becomes a white wonderland as the rest of the country gets drenched with rain.
By SHARON UDASINA soldier in the IDF's 890th Paratrooper Battalion trains in Israel's first snow of the winter season.(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
After a stormy weekend filled with heavy rains and winds all over the country, the North received its first snows on Monday morning.Mount Hermon enjoyed a dusting of white for the first time this season. Although some snow did fall, it did so only in the upper portions of the 2,814-meter mountain, near the IDF outposts, Shaul Ohana, director of the Mount Hermon Ski Resort, told Army Radio.Meanwhile, rains continued to fall all over Israel on Monday, from the North to the northern Negev.From the beginning of the current storm on Friday through midday Monday, the most rainfall was recorded in Safed, where 42 millimeters fell, according to Dr. Amos Porat, director of the Climate Department at the Israel Meteorological Services. During the same period, 37 millimeters accumulated in Tel Aviv, while 32 millimeters fell in Merom Golan in the North and 32 millimeters in Kibbutz Be’eri, near the Gazan border.Heavy rains also fell in Nitzan – a kibbutz between Ashkelon and Ashdod – and Karnei Shomron in the Samaria portion of the West Bank, receiving 28 millimeters and 26 millimeters, respectively, Porat said.Haifa received 15 millimeters, Jerusalem 12 millimeters, Beersheba 10 millimeters and Nahariya 20 millimeters.“The stormy weather is caused by an upper air trough that is located over the eastern Mediterranean for the last few days, and is expected to continue its stay in the next few days,” Porat told The Jerusalem Post. “It is accompanied by a depression in the lower levels resulting in instability, cloud development and rainfall.”In meteorological terms, a trough is an elongated region characterized by low atmospheric pressure, whereas a ridge is a similar area with high atmospheric pressure. A depression, meanwhile, is an area of low atmospheric pressure typically accompanied by cloudiness and rainy weather.Because the depression was “rather weak” on Monday, the winds were not very strong, but the clouds moved slowly, Porat explained.“As a result we have a very cloudy and cool day over the country,” he said.On Tuesday, IMS forecasters expect the depression to deepen with increasing winds, Porat said. Rainfall will likely intensify during the later portion of Tuesday, and winds and rains will also continue on Wednesday, he continued. By Thursday, the storm system will weaken, but meteorologists still are expecting rainfall, he added.“All in all we expect large amounts of rainfall in the next few days,” Porat said.
