Flooding is an annual challenge in Sudan in August and September. Around that time each year, monsoon rains pour into the Ethiopian Highlands and flow down to the Blue Nile and White Nile. As the rivers wind their way north through Sudan and South Sudan, floodwaters often swamp riverside communities.
The annual flooding happened again in 2024. But this time, heavy rains also fell in the north of the country, fueling destructive flash floods in areas less accustomed to receiving so much runoff. This led to deadly flash floods that have inundated villages, swamped farmland, washed out roads, and damaged infrastructure, according to reports from aid organizations and news outlets.
On August 31, 2024, the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this false-color image (right) showing some of the affected areas in the northeastern states of Kassala, the Red Sea, and River Nile. Swollen waterways and floodwater are visible along the Nile and Atbarah rivers. The other image shows the same area on July 9, 2024, before the latest round of heavy rains.
In this false-color scene (MODIS bands 7-2-1), areas covered by water appear dark blue. The lighter blues in some of the channels east of the Nile visible in the upper part of the image are signs that soils are still wet even if the ephemeral streams that formed during periods of heavy rain have drained. Vegetation appears green.
NOAA’s Global Drought Monitor reports that much of northern Sudan has been exceptionally wet in the past three months. Satellite-based rainfall estimates shared by the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Center indicate that many parts of Sudan received tens to hundreds of millimeters of rain during the last three weeks of August, significantly more than usual.
Since June, flooding has displaced as many as 124,600 people across 13 of Sudan’s 18 states, according to the United Nations (UN). The flooding has severely curtailed efforts to deliver food and humanitarian aid in a country that has reached a “catastrophic breaking point,” the UN’s International Organization for Migration said in a statement.
People in some parts of Sudan are experiencing famine conditions, and millions of people face acute food insecurity, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). FEWS NET, established by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), provides timely, evidence-based early warning information and analysis of current and future acute food insecurity. NASA is among the organizations that partner with USAID to produce FEWS NET warning information and analysis.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview. Story by Adam Voiland.
