Rain & Snow Cause Chaos In World's Driest Desert

Life in the 600-mile stretch of chile'sAtacama Desert has been a little chaotic lately. Production at Copper mines has been disrupted, highways blocked, football games cancelled, rooftops have collapsed and, the list goes on and on - The culprit? A 'wet' July that ushered in 3-feet of snow on the mountain ranges, and as much as, one whole inch of rain in the lower-lying areas.While to most of us these amounts seem quite paltry, they are considered torrential in a region that is known as the world driest desert, because parts of it have not seen any precipitation for over 400 years!
The hardest hit is the northern city of Arica, which cumulatively receives about an inch of rain every 50 years. However this year, it has received a whopping .13 inches (3.4 millimeters) in just July! To put it in perspective, it is more than six times the city's national average since scientists began keeping a record, about 30 years ago.Also hit hard, was the coastal city of Antofagasta,which got dumped on in early July, with a quarter inch or a full-year's worth of rain in just one day. While minuscule by most standards, this unexpected rain caused many of the city's flimsy rooftops to leak and even collapse, under the water pressure.

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