Beaches in Lebanon were blanketed in hail on Thursday, with many delighted locals finding solace in the scenic weather. Others poked fun at an oft-touted saying that people can ski and swim in the same day in the mountainous country. Clara El Kouba, 27, software engineer, shared pictures on Twitter from her morning walk on the beach in the coastal town of Jbeil, north of the capital, which quickly went viral. The beach appears covered in snowy-white hail deposited during an overnight storm. A traditional Lebanese house is visible from a distance, standing on top of a small cliff on the stormy Mediterranean Sea. "And then you ask me why I love Jbeil this much?" she asked in her post. Many social media users seemed to see a sign of hope in the pictures' beauty despite the country's <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/economy/2022/01/25/lebanons-economic-contraction-among-worst-since-1850s-world-bank-says/" target="_blank">unprecedented economic meltdown</a> and <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/lebanon/2022/01/26/hariris-exit-illustrates-the-perils-of-leadership-in-lebanon/" target="_blank">endless political bickering.</a> Almost three-quarters of the nation has been pushed into poverty in the past two years. "The picture of the day: Snowy Beach of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Byblos?src=hashtag_click">#Byblos</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Jbeil?src=hashtag_click">#Jbeil</a> city in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Lebanon?src=hashtag_click">#Lebanon</a>, such a country that never finishes of amazing us despite its endemic political problems," tweeted researcher Fadi Daou, alongside the hashtags <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/livelovelebanon?src=hashtag_click">#livelovelebanon</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/snowday?src=hashtag_click">#snowday</a>. Others played with the slogan that Lebanon is a place in which people can ski and swim in the same day — the small country's snow-capped mountains are in some parts less than an hour's drive from the shore. "Miss Lebanon will now be like: You can ski and then swim in 1 minute" tweeted researcher Talal Zeidan. "Today you can really say: ski and snow on the same day," wrote another researcher, Anis Tabet, who tweeted in a mixture of Arabic and English. "I know it's an old saying but today we can jokingly say that it's technically feasible. You can actually ski on the beach," he told <i>The National</i>. The Middle East is currently going through a cold snap which has caused heavy snowstorms in Lebanon, and Ms El Kouba said she could not remember seeing hail remain on the beach for so long for at least a decade. "There is so much negativity going around. This is something cool to talk about," she said.
