Skiers in Europe were treated to some remarkable sights as dust from the Sahara Desert mixed into the snowing in some eastern countries. The snow turned into a never-seen-before orange colour and the place transformed into a Mars-like appearance! Tourists on the weekend were surprised to see the new colour of the traditionally white snow. Skiers in at least four countries including Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Romania experienced the orange snow land. Social media had pictures from an excited bunch of people, some calling it a feeling like skiing on Mars.

Meteorologists, however, have said that the phenomenon occurs once in five years but this time the sand concentration was much higher than previous years, making for an orange colour. The sand blowing from Northern Africa was responsible for this. Not only sand there was also a mix of dust and pollen particles that stirred up and swept in the snowstorms. A massive sandstorm hit North Africa in the last week causing the sand to swift across to eastern Europe.

Check some pictures of the orange snow in Eastern Europe:

The tints of yellow to orange slopes

Skiiers are definitely making the most of it

Mars on Earth? 

A post shared by Alina Smurygina (@sinyaya_ptiza) on

The orange bed of snow

What is orange snow and why it’s there?👇🏼 After million years earth experiencing orange snow, its wonder but happen once in million years when earth 🌏 reverse winds from normal climates, somehow this natural sand fertilizer flown from Sahar backward mixed with rain and fall dense, interested is not orange snow or the reverse winds, most interested is Mother Nature connections, this is not ordinary sand but dead diatoms gathered millions of years ago in sea bed which we called Sahara desert today, this layer of orang snow going to be time machine for future generations to know age of upper layers of ice #science #environment #weather #climate #climatechange #orangesnow #snow #diatoms #sahara #saharadesert #dessert #nature #natural #fertilizer #scienceandtechnology #study #russia #morocco #mountains

A post shared by Asad (@amj747) on

While the conditions may seem dangerous, the skiing activities have been ongoing, giving the tourists an opportunity to capture the orange snow. The last such occurence of orange snow was seen in Siberia in 2007.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 27, 2018 06:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).