File:Snow in Turkey (MODIS 2021-03-31).jpg

English: A cold front brought a late-March snowstorm to Turkey, dropping heavy snow on Istanbul and across much of the country on March 24, 2021. According to local news media, snowfall in Istanbul was heavy enough to cause traffic to grind to a halt in some places and caused accidents from ice-covered roads—all in a month typically guaranteed to have warm (or even hot) temperatures. Snow also fell in the capital city, Ankara, where depth reached 30 cm (11.8 in). Avalanche warnings were issued in parts of Anatolia.

On March 24, The Daily Sabah published a story online that stated, “Snowfall in March is a stark contrast to the fact that Turkey has been through the third warmest winter in the last five decades. Figures by Anadolu Agency (AA) show that the average seasonal temperature, which was usually 3.6 degrees Celsius (38.48 Fahrenheit), reached 6.2 degrees Celsius this winter. Rize in the north had the highest temperature in winter, at 27 degrees, while Ağrı broke the national record with the lowest temperature at minus 34.5.”

On March 28, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of Turkey swathed in snow. Snow and cloud also cover the island of Cyprus and patches of cloud sit over the Mediterranean Sea.