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Morocco's southeastern desert once experienced a rare downpour that totally revived some of its lakes and ponds. Locals and tourists at the time hailed it a "blessing from the sky".
In 2024, the Moroccan government shared that just two days of rainfall in October exceeded yearly averages that experience an average of less than 10 inches each year. Tata was one of the areas hit the hardest. Meanwhile, in the village of Tagounite, more than 3.9 inches were reported in a single day.
"It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time," Houssine Youabeb of Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology, said at the time.
Satellite images show lakes emerging in the Sahara, including Algeria's Sebkha el Melah in Algeria and several more in Erg Chebbi in Morocco.
French tourist Laetitia Chevallier described the rainfall as a "blessing". Chevallier added: "The desert became green again, the animals have food again, and the plants and palm trees came back to life."
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Another tourist Jean Marc Berhocoirigoin was stunned to find Yasmina Lake filled.
"I felt like a kid on Christmas morning," he said. "I hadn't seen these views for 15 years."
Meanwhile, Moshe Armon, a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said about the water filling Sebkha el Melah in Algeria: "If we don't get any more rain events, a 2.2-meter depth, like we have now, would take about a year to evaporate completely."
This article was originally published on 28 October 2024 and has since been updated
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