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Seasonal Rain Floods Africa's Sahel: Image of the Day

Africa's Sahel region, a margin of semi-arid grassland around the southern limit of the Sahara Desert, gets most of its rainfall between June and September when the band of earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4028 near-perpetual thunderstorms that hover around the equator shifts north. In 2007, the final months of the rainy season brought unusually heavy rainfall to much of the Sahel and the tropical savannas to its south, causing floods in river basins from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean coasts of the continent. This image illustrates how extensive the extreme ra…