In a stunning turn of events, a rare and exceptional flood has changed the Sahara Desert, one of the driest and most hostile places on earth.
Parts of the desert were submerged by torrential rains in September, which dried up old lakes for fifty years and produced transient oasis in a normally desolate area.
Long-standing records were broken by the extraordinary rainfall that fell over two days in southeast Morocco.
Over 100 millimeters (3.9 inches) of rain poured in the hamlet of Tagounite, 450 kilometers south of Rabat, in a single day, surpassing the region’s yearly normal.
Lake Iriqui, a lake bed that had been bone-dry for fifty years, miraculously reappeared as a result of this flood.
