Behold Sebkha el Melah, an ephemeral lake in Algeria, seen from space.
There is one obvious dark-green difference.
The rain came in earlier September and soaked parts of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.
An ephemeral lake in Algeria last month.Image: Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey
The images were taken by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) aboard NASAs Landsat 9.
Lake levels across northern Africa were much higher than they are today, and the region much more verdant.
Sebkha el Melah could stay filled for years.
The summer tends to be a wetter time of year for the Sahara.
Eyes from the sky increasingly help scientists monitor Earths water.
Other spacecraft, like NASAs Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR),keep track of atmospheric climate events.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
