Sunday, October 13

Huge amounts of water have puddled in the Sahara Desert after the region received a year's worth of rain in two days, flooding towns and turning dry lakes into lagoons of water.

The system passed through southeastern Morocco over the past couple days, dousing a dry, arid region that receives under 10 inches of rain in an entire year. In Tagounite, south of the country's capital and major city of Rabat, they recorded over 3.9 inches of rain in one day, an extremely rare event for the desert town.

Officials stated that it had been over 50 years since some areas had received that much rain in just a few days, and the storm is sure to help all of southeastern Morocco. Lake Iriqui, a large pond in the area, had bee dry for 50 years before it was filled up this weekend, and numerous other reservoirs were greatly filled up by the rains.

This comes just after a relatively wet month for the Sahara-- September provided a big boost for the region's water supply. In fact, one report stated that dammed reservoirs in southeast Morocco had refilled at record-breaking rates during the month of September. Due to years of continuous drought, farmers had been forced to leave their lands farther into the Sahara because of the lack of water for irrigation, but several are starting to return now that local groundwater supplies and reservoirs have been replenished. Unfortunately, around 20 people also died from flooding after those rains, and over 56 homes were damaged along with crucial infrastructure like roads, power lines, and water pipes.

Climate change is leading to significant changes in global weather patterns, heating up the Earth as a whole. This is increasing temperatures at the Equator, which is already one of the planet's hottest regions, which happens to be the exact line which the Sahara is situated on. These rising temperatures lead to hotter, drier conditions for long periods of time, but more evaporation and higher moisture content in the air also sparks stronger, more frequent storms.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): Chameleon tongues usually stretch one to two times the length of their body. However, some species have tongues that stretch up to 2.5 times their body length!

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn’t really care, wisdom does. (Benjamin Hoff)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Verbatim (adv)- Verbatim is an adverb meaning "in the exact words," or in other words, "word for word."

In a Sentence: The coach was quoted verbatim in the article announcing that she would retire at the end of the season.