Two days of rainfall in south-east Morocco that exceeded yearly averages in several areas has caused flooding in the Sahara desert for the first time in half a century. Dramatic pictures of the flooding have emerged on social media.
A lake bed between Zagora and Tata, Lake Iriqui that had been dry for 50 years was filled up, according to satellite imagery from NASA, reported AP.
“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time," Houssine Youabeb, an official of Morocco's meteorology agency told AP. In a village about 450 kilometres south of the capital, Rabat, over 100 mm of rainfall was recorded in a 24-hour period.
Experts have warned that such rain, called an extratropical storm, may change the weather conditions in the region in the coming months and years. The increased amount of moisture in the air promotes more evaporation and provokes more storms, Youabeb said.
Last month, 18 people were killed due to floods in Morocco as the impact stretched to regions that had been affected by an earthquake last year.
Sahara is the world's largest hot desert spanning 9.4m sq km stretching across a dozen countries in north, central and west Africa. Many of these countries face recurring droughts with extreme weather events on the rise due to global heating. This has led scientists to predict the possibility of similar storms in the Sahara in the future, reported the Guardian.
World Meteorological Organization secretary-general, Celeste Saulo told reporters on Monday that water cycles across the world were changing with increasing frequency.
“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water,” she said.