Sudan copper, gold, granite, gypsum, iron, kaolin, lead, manganese, mica, natural gas, nickel, petroleum, silver, tin, uranium and zinc. The amount of rainfall increases towards the south. The central and the northern part have extremely dry desert areas such as the Nubian Desert to the northeast and the Bayuda Desert to the east; in the south there are swamps and rainforest. Sudan's rainy season lasts for about three months (July to September) in the north, and up to six months (June to November) in the south. The dry regions are plagued by sandstorms, known as haboob, which can completely block out
Sahara Desert (ecoregion) Sahara Desert (ecoregion) The Sahara Desert ecoregion, as defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), includes the hyper-arid center of the Sahara, between 18° and 30° N. It is one of several desert and xeric shrubland ecoregions that cover the northern portion of the African continent. The Sahara Desert is the world's largest hot desert, located in North Africa. It stretches from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The vast desert encompasses several ecologically distinct regions. The Sahara Desert ecoregion covers an area of in the hot, hyper-arid center of the Sahara, surrounded on the north, south,