This area was one of the driest position on Earth . However , after an immoderately coarse cyclone , this bone - scorchingly ironic Baroness Dudevant desert has had a revamp .
AfterTropical Cyclone Mekunu passed over the regionlast month , the Rub ’ al - Khali desert of the Arabian Peninsula transmute into an haven of lakes , a rare phenomenon that has not been seen in 20 year .
The first simulacrum was acquired on May 13 by NASA’sLandsat 8satellite . The second ikon was taken on May 29 , following the deluge of Tropical Cyclone Mekunu , which reached efflorescence intensity on May 25 . Salalah , a city in Oman found in the south of this mental image , reportedly received 27.8 centimeter ( 11 inches ) of rainfall over 24 hour between May 25 - 26 .
The weewee was deposited in this unusual way due to the desert ’s design of sand dunes . In exceptional , the elongated linear shapes are most in all likelihood work by the desert ’s wind carving channels and forming hill of sand .
Bear in mind , all of these images utilize false colors to make it well-situated to distinguish between dissimilar feature , such as the different types of John Rock and soil . Still , as you may see in the tweet below , the effect look just as impressive on infantry as it does from low - Earth orbit .
Rub ' al Khali translate from Arabic as " Quarter of Emptiness ” . This area spans some 650,000 square kilometers ( 250,000 square miles ) across Saudi Arabia , Oman , the United Arab Emirates , and Yemen . It ’s the world ’s largest neighboring sand desert and one of the driest piazza on Earth .
All of this is fairly serious news for the area ’s camels too . Overall , this flood is expected to help the area . So , fingers span , there could be some even more unbelievable images coming out of the Rub ’ al - Khali desert very briefly .
“ The land will need 30 days to sprout their summer industrial plant . and the great unwashed gestate to feed their camels on them for the come two years , ” Ali Al - Hatish , a steady visitor of the desert , toldAl Arabiya .
On the other hand , the cyclone created more than its fair share of chaos . Towards the final stage of May , The Red Crossreportedthat seven people had died and many multitude were missing due to the cyclone . Towns in its wake were also open to monumental flash flooding and downed mightiness parentage .
[ H / T : NASA Earth Observatory ]
