TRANSCRIPT
Water rushing between the sand dunes of southern Morocco.
In desert communities frequented by tourists, 4x4s motored through the puddles and residents surveyed the scene in awe.
It's a surreal image left by the heavy rains that fell in August and September have given a different face to the Moroccan Sahara, better known for its frequent droughts.
Houssine Youabeb is the Communication Manager of Morocco's General Directorate of Meteorology.
“It's been 30 to 50 years since we've had this much rain in such a short space of time. It has to be said that even for the geography of the region, since we're on the eastern slopes of the Atlas mountains, we've noticed that it's as if all the rains are directed towards the same areas.”
Southern Morocco is not usually affected by rainfall from the Inter Tropical Front.
According to Mr Youabeb, says satellite imagery has even detected the presence of water in regions, which have been dry for 50 years.
"There's even a lake that has been dry for 50 years, named Lake Iriqui, [[ee-REE-key]] between the Zagora and Tata regions, where the water has returned, as Nasa images have shown. So, the old desert lakes will come back to life.”
Six consecutive years of drought have posed challenges for much of Morocco, forcing farmers to leave fields fallow and cities and villages to ration water.
The bounty of rainfall will likely help refill the large groundwater aquifers beneath the desert that are relied upon to supply water in desert communities.
The region’s dammed reservoirs reported refilling at record rates throughout September, however, it’s unclear how far September’s rains will go toward alleviating drought.
Mr Youabeb says the presence of water in the Sahara could profoundly alter weather forecasts in the future.
“There will be more evaporation into the air, more moisture in the air. This excess moisture will therefore fall on certain regions and cause precipitation. There will even be a change in the form of precipitation. We'll no longer have this usually organised rainfall, but rather quite strong thunderstorms over certain regions.”
