Claim: Viral video showing snowfall is from Sibbi, Balochistan.
Fact: Viral video showing snowfall is from Ziarat, Balochistan.
On 24 March 2023, multimedia journalist Fahmidah Yousfi uploaded a video on Twitter claiming that it shows snowfall in Sibi, Balochistan. She captioned the video: “Sibi, the hottest spot in Pakistan, never had snow in living memory. It’s a manifestation of climate change. Astonishing.”
According to the Balochistan High Courts website, Sibi is known as the “hot spot” of Pakistan where in summer, the temperatures rise as high as 52.6 degrees Celsius.
Several social media users contested that this video was from Sibi in reply to the tweet.
Fact or Fiction?
Sibi’s weather on the day of 14 March 2023, according to AccuWeather, reached the highest temperature at 30 degrees and the lowest at 18 degrees Celsius.
One of the replies to the tweet included a screenshot of a weather update from 9:10 pm showing the temperature to be 20 degrees Celsius.
Weather forecast for March 2023 on the official AccuWeather website shows temperatures not reaching anywhere near freezing point.
Through the InVID toolbox for video verification, we discovered that this video was originally posted on 23 March 2023 on a Facebook page called “Ziarat Guest Houses&Hotels”, where it was viewed 197 times and was captioned: “#زیارت میں برفباری کا سلسلہ جاری ہے” (Translation: Snowfall continues in Ziarat)
Virality
The tweet was shared with 86,333 followers and received 1,031 interactions on Twitter.
Conclusion: Snow did not fall in Sibi; the viral video is from Ziarat, Balochistan.