Produced by: Manoj Kumar
Satellite images reveal lakes in the Sahara after a cyclone drenched northern Africa with a year’s worth of rain in just days, transforming the barren landscape with unexpected water bodies.
On Sept. 7 and 8, an extratropical cyclone hit Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, dumping 8 inches of rain — the equivalent of a full year’s rainfall — over vast desert areas.
The deluge filled several ephemeral lakes, including Sebkha el Melah in Algeria and others around Morocco’s Erg Chebbi dunes, offering a rare sight of water in one of Earth’s driest regions.
Rivers from the Atlas Mountains overflowed, filling lakes near Merzouga, a town at the edge of Erg Chebbi’s star dunes, captured in striking satellite imagery from Oct. 1, 2024.
NASA’s Landsat 9 captured images of Sebkha el Melah, revealing the desert lake expanding by late September. It stretched 74 square miles and reached a depth of 7.2 feet, according to researchers.
This is one of only two times since 2000 that Sebkha el Melah has been filled by water, with the last instance in 2008 following another cyclone. It took four years for the lake to completely evaporate.
With its current 2.2-meter depth, Sebkha el Melah is expected to take about a year to evaporate if there are no additional rain events, giving researchers a rare window to study its impact.
These lake-filling events offer valuable insights into the Sahara’s history, when it was once a green and fertile region, and help researchers understand its future under changing climate conditions.
While climate change projections suggest parts of the Sahara could receive more rain, the desert’s future remains uncertain. Scientists hope studying these events will clarify how it will evolve in the coming years.