In northwestern China, near the ancient Silk Road outpost of Dunhuang, the sandy landscape sees little moisture but is no stranger to cold.

In northwestern China, near the ancient Silk Road outpost of Dunhuang, the sandy landscape sees little moisture but is no stranger to cold. When the cold combines with rare precipitation, the sand dunes of this desert are graced with snow. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite acquired these natural-color images of an area south of Dunhuang. The ground was snow free on November 27, 2012 (top), but a snowstorm moved through the region by December 7, 2012