Water gushes through palm trees and sand dunes after rare rain in the Sahara Desert

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — A rare deluge of rainfall left blue lagoons of water amid the palm trees and sand dunes of the Sahara desert, nourishing some of its most drought-stricken regions with more water than many had seen in decades.

Southeastern Morocco's desert is among the most arid places in the world and rarely experiences rain in late summer.

The Moroccan government said two days of rainfall in September had exceeded yearly averages in several areas that get an average of less than 250 millimeters (10 inches) annually, including Tata, one of the areas hit hardest. In Tagounite, a village about 450 kms (280 miles) south of the capital Rabat, more than 100 mm (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

The storms provided more rainfall than had been seen in decades, leaving striking images of bountiful water gushing through the Saharan sands amid castles and desert flora.

In desert communities frequented by the many tourists who visit the Sahara, 4x4s motored through the puddles and residents surveyed the scene in awe.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time," said Houssine Youabeb of Morocco's General Directorate of Meteorology.

Such rains, which meteorologists are calling an extratropical storm, may indeed change the course of the region's weather in months and years to come as the air retains more moisture, causing more evaporation and drawing more storms, Youabeb said.

Six consecutive years of drought have posed challenges for much of Morocco, forcing farmers to leave fields fallow and cities and villages to ration water consumption.

The bounty of rainfall will likely help refill the large groundwater aquifers that lie beneath the desert and are relied upon to supply water in desert communities. The region's dammed reservoirs reported refilling at record rates throughout September. However, it's unclear how far September's rains will go toward alleviating drought.

Yet water gushing through the sands and oases left more than 20 dead in Morocco and Algeria and damaged the farmers' harvests, forcing the government to allocate emergency relief funds, including in some areas affected by last year's earthquake.

NASA satellites showed water rushing in to fill Lake Iriqui, a famous lakebed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years.

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Ahmed reported from Bamako, Mali.

Palm trees are flooded in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

A vehicle transports tourists on sand dunes next to a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

An oasis is reflected in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

Palm trees are flooded in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

A man gestures as he walks on sand dunes next to a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

Palm trees are reflected in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

A view of lakes caused by heavy rainfall between sand dunes in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

STOCKHOLM (AP) — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — who is known as the Godfather of artificial intelligence — were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for discoveries and inventions that formed the building blocks of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

“This year’s two Nobel Laureates in physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning,” the Nobel committee said in a press release.

Hopfield’s research is carried out at Princeton University and Hinton works at the University of Toronto.

Ellen Moons, a member of the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the two laureates “used fundamental concepts from statistical physics to design artificial neural networks that function as associative memories and find patterns in large data sets.”

She said that such networks have been used to advance research in physics and “have also become part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation.”

While the committee honored the science behind machine learning and artificial intelligence, Moons also mentioned its flipside, saying that "while machine learning has enormous benefits, its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future. Collectively, humans carry the responsibility for using this new technology in a safe and ethical way for the greatest benefit of humankind.”

Hinton shares those concerns. He quit a role at Google so he could more freely speak about the dangers of the technology he helped create.

On Tuesday, he said he was shocked at the honor.

“I’m flabbergasted. I had, no idea this would happen,” he said when reached by the Nobel committee on the phone.

Hinton said he continues to worry “about a number of possible bad consequences’’ of his machine learning work, “particularly the threat of these things getting out of control,” but still would do it all over again.

Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize for their discovery of tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on and off switches inside cells that help control what the cells do and when they do it. If scientists can better understand how they work and how to manipulate them, it could one day lead to powerful treatments for diseases like cancer.

The physics prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by the award's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

Nobel announcements continue with the chemistry physics prize on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on Oct. 14.

Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands.

FILE - Artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton poses backstage at the Collision Conference in Toronto, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who studies neural networks used in artificial intelligence applications, poses at Google's Mountain View, Calif, headquarters on Wednesday, March 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

FILE - Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who studies neural networks used in artificial intelligence applications, poses at Google's Mountain View, Calif, headquarters on Wednesday, March 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

File - Computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton poses at Google's Mountain View, Calif, headquarters on Wednesday, March 25, 2015. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

FILE - Artificial intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton speaks at the Collision Conference in Toronto, Wednesday, June 19, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, seen in picture, are awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, which is announced at a press conference by Hans Ellergren, center, permanent secretary at the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden Tuesday Oct. 8, 2024. (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP)

FILE - A close-up view of a Nobel Prize medal at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - A Nobel Prize medal is displayed before a ceremony at the Swedish Ambassador's Residence in London, Monday, Dec. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

The Nobel Prize in physics is being awarded, a day after 2 Americans won the medicine prize

The Nobel Prize in physics is being awarded, a day after 2 Americans won the medicine prize

FILE - A bust of Alfred Nobel on display following a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency via AP, File)