RABAT (AP) – A rare deluge of rainfall left blue lagoons of water amid the palm trees and sand dunes of the Sahara desert, nourishing some of its driest regions with more water than they had seen in decades.
Southeastern Morocco’s desert is among the most arid places in the world and rarely experiences rain in late summer.
The Moroccan government said two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas that see less than 250 millimetres annually, including Tata, one of the areas hit hardest. In Tagounite, a village about 450 kilometres south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100 millimetres was recorded in a 24-hour period.
The storms left striking images of water gushing through the Saharan sands amid castles and desert flora. NASA satellites showed water rushing in to fill Lake Iriqui, a famous lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years.
In desert communities frequented by tourists, 4x4s motored through the puddles and residents surveyed the scene in awe. “It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,” said Houssine Youabeb of Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology. Such rains, which meteorologists are calling an extratropical storm, may change the course of the region’s weather in months and years to come as the air retains more moisture, causing more evaporation and drawing more storms, Youabeb said.
