Snow and not snow was the most likely reason why Olympus was covered in white despite still being August.
As the meteorologist Dr. Stavros Keppas explained to GRTimes, “the most likely thing, seeing the meteorological conditions that prevail in the middle troposphere, is that Mount Olympus ‘turned white’ from blue snow which can be noted even at a temperature of 10 °C.”
According to the meteorologist, this happens when “we have vertical flows within clouds associated with heavy rain for a short period of time.”
The hailstones may have… coated a spot on Olympus that is at 2,000m in altitude, but it differs from snow, and is not formed like hail.
As Keppas explained, “it is an ice crystal or a flake (agglomeration of ice crystals) that passes through a point of the cloud with large amounts of moisture and thus, the much smaller water droplets freeze on it.”
“Thus,” he continues, “an ice pack is created that can actually contain voids. So, in the event that this phenomenon intensifies, according to the meteorologist, then it can ‘layer’ on surfaces.”
Essentially, as he said, “it is a more compact flake, which can be maintained for more hours at positive temperatures compared to snow.”
He also clarified that, “to see the temperature drop to zero today, we would have to climb to about 3,600m above the surface of the sea.”