Saudi Snow Hit Trojena After a Familiar Mountain Winter

Snow covered Jabal Al-Lawz and Trojena on December 17, 2025, with temperatures near the peaks around -4°C. Global posts called it Saudi Arabia’s first snowfall in 30 years.

The peaks already had a winter habit. The same week, snow also dusted desert flats, which is the part of the storm that is actually uncommon, and it landed on the mountain Saudi Arabia had picked for a ski resort.

A Cold Wave Turned the High Country White

The National Center for Meteorology warned on December 14, 2025, that the first cold wave of winter was moving in, with a sharp drop in the north and unstable rain. By December 17 the upper trough had driven cold air far enough south that rain turned to snow on the high ground of Tabuk and Hail.

Jabal Al-Lawz, listed at 2,580 meters in local reports, took heavy snow, fog, and strong wind. The Saudi Press Agency logged snowfall on the Trojena highlands the same day, with light rain beside it. Rain also fell at Bi’r bin Hirmas, Al-Uyaynah, Halat Ammar, and Shigry.

NCM spokesperson Hussein Al-Qahtani said Tabuk and Hail highlands had already seen snow that day from a very cold air mass with unstable weather, and that more was possible the next day over northern Riyadh and Qassim. He told drivers to watch for ice and to follow the centre’s own updates.

THE DECEMBER 2025 COLD WAVE

1. December 14, 2025: NCM flags the first cold wave of winter and a sharp drop in the north.
2. December 17, 2025: Heavy snow at Jabal Al-Lawz, snow at Trojena, and snow on Hail highlands, with lows near -4°C.
3. December 18, 2025: Snow reported around Hail city and, by the next morning, at Al-Majmaah and Al-Ghat north of Riyadh.
4. December 20, 2025: NCM still has the north and centre cold to very cold, with frost possible at night.

People drove up for photos, sleds, and a few improvised ski runs. The hashtag for Jabal Al-Lawz jumped the local charts because a white mountain in a desert country still looks like a trick, even to people who live a few hours away.

Almond Mountain Already Has a Snow Habit

Jabal Al-Lawz means almond mountain. Local weather copy calls it a winter stop, not a freak. A Tabuk dispatch on the December storm said the peak is known for yearly snow cover, which is a long way from a 30-year blank.

The official record is blunter. On February 17, 2024, the Saudi Press Agency reported a thick coat on Al-Lawz for the second time that month, after a warm spell delayed the fall, and described snow the public awaits every year on the 2,600-metre peaks. That bulletin also noted the 2024 snow arrived about two months later than in 2023.

WINTERS THAT ALREADY WENT WHITE

• January 1973: A Siberian outbreak put up to 20 cm of snow on parts of Riyadh, far from the northwest peaks.
• 1992: NCM’s strongest listed cold wave, with Hail falling to -9.3°C.
• February 2024: SPA recorded two Al-Lawz snowfalls in the same month and called the scene an annual wait.
• December 17, 2025: The storm that went global, with snow on peaks and on some desert flats.
• March 22, 2026: A regional weather account posted new video of snow on Jabal Al-Lawz, months after the “once in 30 years” headlines.

What went viral in December was not that a 2,580-meter ridge can freeze. It was snow sitting on sand and rock that usually reads as empty desert, plus the old camel clips that get pulled out of the archive every time the temperature drops.

Trojena Stood in the Path of That Storm

Trojena sits in the Jabal Al Lawz range, in Tabuk province, as the mountain piece of NEOM. The official page puts it at altitudes of up to 2,600 meters and sells subzero winter temperatures at Trojena as a year-round outdoor pitch. NEOM lists 1,400 square kilometers of mountainous region. A 2025 climate study treats the resort footprint as 60 square kilometers, from 1,500 to 2,600 meters, about 50 kilometers from the Gulf of Aqaba.

Situated in the Jabal Al Lawz mountain range, at altitudes of up to 2,600 m above sea level, Trojena has distinctive biodiversity and subzero winter temperatures.

NEOM, Trojena destination page

The same study, published September 2, 2025, in Environmental Research Communications, says the project was launched in 2022 with a 2026 completion target, 36 km of planned slopes, and a goal of 700,000 tourists a year by 2030. NEOM’s own line, quoted in that paper, is “perfect conditions for a world-class ski resort,” mixing natural and machine snow.

So the December 17 storm did not discover winter on a random dune. It whitened the exact ridge the kingdom had already branded as a ski mountain, while the lifts and snow guns were still a construction file.

Fewer Than Two Natural Snow Days a Year

Laura Sourp, Abbas Fayad, and Simon Gascoin ran the numbers on that ridge. Using MODIS satellite passes at midday for 2000 to 2022, they found snow cover over the Trojena area on less than 2 days per year on average. That is not a contradiction of the “annual outing” on Jabal Al-Lawz. It is a different clock. A dusting that melts by noon can still pack the access road with photographers. A ski resort needs a pack that lasts.

They then modelled machine snow with no limit on water or power, using Alpine-style gun rules, and counted a skiable day as at least 300 mm of snow depth. Point P2390 sits at 2,389 meters near the top of the planned area. Point P2150 sits at 2,151 meters near the bottom.

SKIABLE DAYS WITH FULL SNOWMAKING

The present figures are for 1995 to 2014. The later column uses CMIP6 warming for 2041 to 2060 under SSP2-4.5, a middle-of-the-road path. Even at the top, snowmaking lifts the median from 0 natural skiable days to 68 skiable days at high elevation, and one year in ten still has none because the air is not cold enough for the guns. At the bottom of the resort, the 2050s median falls to 0 despite those guns. The authors’ close line is that climate change “strongly compromises the utility of the planned infrastructure.”

December 2025 was a gift of real flakes on a project that, on the satellite record, cannot count on them.

Almaty, Not NEOM, Has the 2029 Games

Trojena was named host of the 2029 Asian Winter Games in 2022. That date was the hard test of whether a desert ski file could become a continental event. On January 24, 2026, the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia said they had agreed on a new hosting frame and postponed the 2029 edition to a later date to be announced.

The joint line was about “long-term and sustainable development of winter sports” in Saudi Arabia and West Asia. Saudi Arabia would instead stage a run of standalone winter events in the coming years. No public brief tied the delay to the December snow, and none needed to. The snow lasted days. A Games venue has to last a fortnight on a calendar.

On February 5, 2026, the Olympic Council of Asia signed the 2029 host-city contract with Almaty, Kazakhstan, in Milan. The continental winter meet that was supposed to open Trojena to the world now sits in a city that already has mountains, cold, and a snow record that does not depend on a midday satellite average of less than two days.

Why Do Camels Keep Walking Through Saudi Snow?

Every time Tabuk goes white, the same pictures move: a dromedary on a pale slope, a sand patch showing under a crust, a family in thobes on a ridge that looks borrowed from another latitude. A 2021 video of camels in a Tabuk storm, and another from Hail in 2020, still outrun most of the 2025 posts. The clip is treated as new because most of the country never sees it.

Northerners have been saying for years that this is a winter habit, not a national shock, and that Saudi Arabia is not one sheet of sand. The December 2025 videos were real, and some viewers still asked if they were generated, which is what happens when a true image looks like a prompt. The storm’s rare piece was snow on open desert, not snow on Almond Mountain.

Jabal Al-Lawz will go white again on some future cold night. Trojena’s advertised ski season still depends on machines, water, and a climate window the 2025 study said is already shrinking.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Saudi Arabia really see snow for the first time in 30 years?

No. Mountain snow in Tabuk is a repeating winter event, and SPA described Al-Lawz snow in February 2024 as a scene the public already waits for each year. The inland shocks on the books are different: up to 20 cm in parts of Riyadh in January 1973, and Hail’s -9.3°C reading in 1992, which NCM still lists as the strongest cold wave in its record.

How high is Trojena, and how far is it from the sea?

The climate paper places the resort between 1,500 and 2,600 meters, about 50 kilometers from the Gulf of Aqaba in the Midian Mountains. NEOM’s public page uses the 2,600-meter cap and a 1,400 square kilometer mountain region, which is the wider district, not the 60 square kilometer ski footprint in the study.

What counts as a skiable day in the Trojena study?

Sourp, Fayad, and Gascoin counted a skiable day as one with at least 300 mm of snow depth, after grooming and snowmaking, using gun settings drawn from Alps resorts (night hours, a 15 km/h wind cap, and a -4°C wet-bulb threshold). Under those rules, 10 percent of years at the top site still have zero skiable days because the air never gets cold enough.

Did the 2029 Asian Winter Games stay in Saudi Arabia?

No. The Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia postponed the 2029 edition on January 24, 2026, and said Saudi Arabia would host standalone winter events instead. The OCA signed Almaty, Kazakhstan, as host of the 2029 Games on February 5, 2026.