It’s known as one of the driest places on our planet.
The images were captured by NASA’s Landsat 9 – an Earth observation satellite that regularly beams back pH๏τos of our planet.
In the first image, Algeria’s salt-encrusted Sebkha el Melah can be seen on August 12, before the rains hit.
By September 29, a huge green lake had emerged at the site, after runoff from a storm partially filled the ephemeral desert lake.
And as global temperatures continue to rise, NASA says that we could see more regular flooding in parts of the Sahara.
‘What’s going to happen in the Sahara remains very unclear, but we hope that we’ll eventually develop a better understanding of the Sahara’s future by studying these lake-filling events,’ said Moshe Armon, a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Shocking before and after images show exactly what happened when the Sahara Desert was struck by its biggest deluge for decades
While most of us know the Sahara Desert to be covered in sand, roughly 11,000 to 15,000 years ago, it looked very different.
Geologic and archaeological evidence indicates that vegetation, wetlands, and even lakes once covered large areas of the desert.
However, last month, hints of this wetter and greener past started to reappear, after an extratropical cyclone dropped a deluge of rainfall on parts of northern Africa.
On August 12, the OLI-2 camera on board the Landsat 9 satellite captured a picture of the salt-encrusted Sebkha el Melah.
The satellite observed the lake beginning to fill in mid-September, and by September 29, green waters emerged.
‘The lake is situated along a ridge of the Ougarta Range and fed by the Oued Saoura, an ephemeral river (sometimes called a wadi) that enters from the southeast,’ NASA explained.
By October 16 the lake was one-third full, with water covering 74 square miles to a depth of 7.2ft (2.2 metres), according to Mr Armon.
The filling of a lake in the Sahara Desert is very rare.
Beyond Algeria, the Moroccan government said two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas that see less than 250 millimetres annually, including Tata, one of the areas hit hardest
In fact, since June 2000, only six rainfall events delivered enough water to start filling the lake at all.
And only two other rain events – one in 2008 and one in 2014 – resulted in larger lake volumes than this.
However, when Sebkha el Melah does fill, the water tends to stick around for years.
After the lake filled back in 2008, it wasn’t until 2012 that it dried up completely.
‘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,’ Dr Armon said.
Beyond Algeria, the Moroccan government said two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas that see less than 250 millimetres annually, including Tata, one of the areas hit hardest.
In Tagounite, a village about 280 miles south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100 millimetres was recorded in a 24-hour period.
The storms left striking images of water gushing through the Saharan sands dotted by castles and desert flora.
