False: This video shows snowfall at Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

Context

A video has been doing the rounds on social media claiming to show snowfall for the first time in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The video shows the grand mosque of Mecca, Masjid al-Haram, covered in snow while visitors appear to enjoy the snowfall. Several users shared the video on various social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. The caption of one such Twitter post, uploaded on January 1, with 11.2k likes and over 456k views, reads, "Historical images from the Kaaba... Masjid al-Haram was covered in white with the falling snow." The user behind this post is Ramazan İzol, president of the World Turkic Youth Council. Another post with the same claim, from January 2, has garnered over 197k views as of publication.

In Fact

However, Hussain Al-Qahtani, the official spokesperson of Saudi Arabia's National Center for Meteorology (NCM), clarified that the viral video was digitally altered and that the claim was false. On January 1, he wrote on Twitter in Arabic, which translates roughly to: "The circulating video of snow falling on #Masjid_al-Haram is incorrect and has been processed with additional effects."

The official Twitter handle of the Emirate of Makkah Province also tweeted a clarification similar to the NCM, stating that the video had been digitally manipulated.

Arabia Weather, a weather monitoring website, also clarified that the viral video had been digitally altered, and the claim is false. The tweet from January 2 also stated that the temperature in Mecca reached 30 degrees Celsius that day, showing that it could not possibly be experiencing snowfall.

A video published by Weather Arabia showed rainfall in the courtyard of Masjid al-Haram on January 2. However, no reports support the claim that the area has recently experienced snowfall.

The Verdict

A digitally altered video has been shared, falsely claiming to show snowfall at the Grand Mosque of Mecca. Several Saudi officials have refuted the claim and stated that the video had been manipulated. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.