Friday, March 21, 2014

A desert river runs again


A river in Israel, dry and arid for years, flowed again last week.  Yahoo News reports:

The river Zin, which drains into the Dead Sea, is about 75 miles long and runs through the Negev Desert, in southern Israel. While it's referred to as a river, usually only the dry bed of the Zin can be seen. Also called the Nahal Zin, the river rarely holds any water due to the arid desert conditions.

But that changed last week ... Heavy rainfall on mountains miles away caused water to run down and fill the riverbed. After years of viewing a dusty and dry creek, villagers gathered at the river's edge to see the water pour down.

There's more at the link.  Here's video footage of the water arriving at a village.  I recommend watching it in full-screen mode, to see the water in the distance as it approaches.





The sight reminds me of some of the dry riverbeds in Namibia, particularly the Fish River.  I've been there when rain's fallen for the first time in a decade or more, and the river suddenly runs wet again, for a few brief days.  The explosion of wildflowers has to be seen to be believed.

Peter

2 comments:

juvat said...

This should have been in your doofus(es) of the week category. That's called a flash flood! And while it doesn't look very deep, it contains quite of bit of force. Enough to have knocked some of those dopes off the side of that wall and down into the lower part where they most likely would have drowned.

Old NFO said...

Pecos River in Texas is the same way...