Have You Seen This? Striking images show rare floods in the largest hot desert on Earth

By Laura Paddison, CNN | Posted - Oct. 16, 2024 at 3:35 p.m.

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

SAHARA DESERT — The Saraha Deseret is famous as an arid, barren place. But striking images show large lakes now etched into the rolling sand dunes after the area was hit with its first floods in decades.

Errachidia, a desert city in southeast Morocco, recorded nearly 3 inches of rainfall, most of it across just two days last month. That's more than four times the normal rainfall for the whole month of September and equates to more than half a year's worth for this area.

"It's been 30 to 50 years since we've had this much rain in such a short space of time,' Houssine Youabeb, from Morocco's meteorology agency, told the Associated Press last week.

As the rain flowed over the desert terrain, it created a new, watery landscape amid the palm trees and scrubby flora.

Some of the most dramatic images are from the desert town of Merzouga, where the rare deluge carved new lakes into the sand dunes.

Palm trees are reflected in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Oct. 2. (Photo: Associated Press)

The reflections of the town's palm trees now shimmer across the expanse of a new lagoon, framed by steep sand dunes.

The rain also filled lakes that are normally dry, such as one in Iriqui National Park, Morocco's largest national park. NASA satellite images from the region, using false color to better highlight the floodwaters, show newly-formed lakes across swaths of the northwest Sahara.

A view of lakes caused by heavy rainfall between sand dunes in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Oct. 2. (Photo: Associated Press)

While much of the rain fell on sparsely-populated remote areas, some fell on Morocco's towns and villages causing deadly flooding last month, which killed more than a dozen people.

The Sahara is the world's largest non-polar desert, stretching across 3.6 million square miles. Satellite images from September showed huge swaths of it carpeted in green as storms pushed further north than usual.