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Two days of heavy rain caused unusual flooding and exceeded the average annual rainfall in Morocco, creating scenes rarely seen in the Sahara.
The Sahara Desert, which extends across 12 countries in North, Central and West Africa, is the largest hot desert in the world.
“There has not been such heavy rain in such a short period of time in 30 or 50 years,” Hussein Youbib, an official at the Moroccan Meteorological Agency, told the Associated Press news agency.
Heavy rains in the Sahara could cause changes in weather patterns in the region over the coming months.
Southeastern Morocco is one of the driest places in the world, and rain rarely falls in late summer.
In the city of Tajunit, located 450 km south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100 mm of rain was recorded within 24 hours.
Meteorologists call this unusual rain an extratropical storm. The Moroccan Meteorological Agency explained that the air retaining more moisture encourages evaporation and provokes more storms.
NASA satellite images showed that the bottom of a lake that had been dry for 50 years had begun to fill, between the cities of Zagora and Tata.
According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), water cycles around the world are changing frequently.
“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated,” says Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization.
“It is also becoming more volatile and unpredictable, and we are facing increasing problems with too much or too little water.”
As extreme weather events become more common due to global warming, scientists predict the possibility of similar storms in the Sahara in the future.
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