Flurries delight war-weary Baghdad

Iraqi girls played in the snow in Sulaimaniyah, northeast of Baghdad, yesterday. Many of the region's residents said they were seeing snow for the first time in memory. (Yahya Ahmed/associated press)

BAGHDAD - The flakes melted quickly. But the smiles, wonder, and excited story-swapping went on throughout the day: It snowed in Baghdad yesterday.

The morning flurry was a very rare occurrence in Iraq's desert capital, and some residents said they had never seen it before. Perhaps more significant, however, was the ripple of delight through a city snarled by army checkpoints, divided by concrete walls, and ravaged by sectarian killings.

"For the first time in my life I saw a snow-rain like this falling in Baghdad," said Mohammed Abdul-Hussein, a 63-year-old retiree from the New Baghdad area.

"When I was young, I heard from my father that such rain had fallen in the early '40s on the outskirts of northern Baghdad," Abdul-Hussein said. "But snow falling in Baghdad in such a magnificent scene was beyond my imagination."

When Staff Sergeant Gregory Jasinskas, a US Marine from West Bridgewater, Mass., walked outside in Baghdad yesterday morning, he also wasn't prepared for what landed on his jacket.

"I noticed that it was cold, like a lot colder than it usually is," he said. The next thing I know, I see a piece of rain land on my jacket, but I think to myself, since when does rain land on my jacket and stay there for a second before it dissolves?"

Then he saw another, and another, and another. "It dawns on me - that rain isn't rain at all," Jasinskas said.

Jasinskas, 34, a state trooper, was deployed to Iraq in November. Ironically, he was home on leave for a few days last month, trying to relax and enjoy some time off. "Bam, it snows like crazy while I am home," he said.

Snow is common in the mountainous Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, but many residents of the capital and surrounding areas could remember just hail. And that, only very occasionally.

Summer temperatures in Baghdad are routinely a sweltering 120 degrees and winters are generally mild.

Globe correspondent Alice C. Elwell contributed to this report.