• “It Never Rains in Lima?”
    Awake!—2003 | May 22

    • When It Does Rain

      Sometimes, however, rain does fall in parts of the desert, including Lima. Every few years, the cool Peru Current gives way to warmer waters that sweep over from the western Pacific. This phenomenon, known as El Niño, signals the imminent arrival of rain. Especially strong El Niños struck in 1925, 1983, and 1997/98. Understandably, desert dwellers, who are used to getting practically no rain at all, are ill prepared for torrential downpours and the ensuing floods.

      One such flood struck Ica, Peru, in 1998. The Ica River inundated large areas of the city, and the mud-brick homes just melted away. Other parts of the desert benefited, soaking up the moisture and becoming lush pastures. The latest El Niño turned much of the Sechura Desert into a garden of green sprinkled with beautiful flowers, reminding us of God’s promise that one day ‘the desert will blossom as the saffron.’ (Isaiah 35:1) The heavy rains also created a huge lake in the desert​—estimated to be some 185 miles [300 km] long and 25 miles [40 km] wide—​that newspapers nicknamed La Niña.