6 Extreme Desert Floods Around the World

The 2014 monsoon season in Arizona was more severe than usual as flash flooding inundated Saguaro National Park’s Tucson Mountain (West) District. Dirt roads were wiped out, and many paved roads were inaccessible. Arizona natives also had to deal with flooding in the Phoenix area. Helicopters were brought in to rescue people from fast-moving water in areas 30 miles north of Phoenix. Trailer parks were evacuated, schools flooded, and first responders rescued motorists from vehicles awash in flood water.

Death Valley National Park, one of the hottest and driest locations in North America, experienced a once-in-a-lifetime event earlier this year, when an intense storm created a temporary, 10-mile long lake in the park. The new body of water was located in the park’s Salt Creek area and came about because a storm dumped 0.87 inches of water in the area in early March. Because the parched landscape could not absorb the water so quickly, a new lake was formed, giving a shutterbugs a rare opportunity to photograph the Panamint Mountains against a lake-produced reflection.

Torrential rain poured down on the Atacama Desert in northern Chile and southern Peru four years ago, with accumulations of 1 to 2 inches in 24 hours — the first rainfall in many centuries. The Atacama Desert is the driest area in the world because of its latitude (Many deserts are found in bands along 30 degrees latitude south, near where Atacama is located.), high elevation, proximity to the Andes Mountains, and the Humboldt Ocean Current, which combine to keep the land parched. Four years ago, a high pressure system that usually keeps storms from moving northward weakened and shifted to the east. This caused a chain of atmospheric events that eventually produced intense rainfall over the desert that caused flooding. The flood resulted in several fatalities, destroyed 100 homes, and caused $1.5 billion in damage.

Monsoonal rain turned deadly in Israel in April last year, when 10 young people died while they were on an organized hike in the Tzafit Valley near the Dead Sea. Two other young people perished in the Negev desert and the southern West Bank due to flooding from heavy rainfall. Severe storms in Israel in April are not rare, but they are surprising for that time of year. The tempests last year caused traffic accidents and the closing of roads as many submerged. People in villages east of Bethlehem had to be rescued, according to authorities.

Rainfall in Pakistan is usually not intense and is more sporadic, and it occurs in the northeastern part of the country. That did not happen in 2010. The 2010 floods in Pakistan were caused by very high rainfall in the Indus River watershed over July and August. A high pressure system north of the Black Sea confined hot air over Russia and caused intense rainfall over Pakistan. Decades of forest reduction also exacerbated the flooding since vegetation soaks up precipitation. Pakistani meteorological officials said rainfall totals were 70% above normal in July and 102% over normal in August. In Peshawar, 10.8 inches of rain fell in one 24-hour period.

The floods were one of the worst in the nation’s history, causing almost 2,000 deaths, and affected 18 million people.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is classified as having a tropical and subtropical desert climate. The area has experienced numerous bouts of heavy rain over the past decade, including one instance in January, 2011, when 11 cm (4.3 in.) of rain fell in 3 hours, resulting in rampaging flood waters and at least 10 fatalities. Last year, floods killed 30 people across the country.