Striking images show rare floods in the largest hot desert on Earth

Striking images from the Sahara Desert show large lakes etched into rolling sand dunes after one of the most arid, barren places in the world was hit with its first floods in decades.

Striking images from the Sahara Desert show large lakes etched into rolling sand dunes after one of the most arid, barren places in the world was hit with its first floods in decades.

The Sahara does experience rain, but usually just a few inches a year and rarely in late summer. Over two days in September, however, intense rain fell in parts of the desert in southeast Morocco, after a low pressure system pushed across northwestern Sahara.

Preliminary NASA satellite data showed nearly 8 inches of rain in some parts of the region.

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 AP 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.