This is the bizarre moment motorists heading for a journey through the desert found themselves ploughing through a flood instead after torrential rain made dunes look more like they were on the beach.

The first video shows an incredulous woman with her head out of the window as her car makes huge waves while driving along the desert road in the Taklimakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

The second video shows cars stopped while workers put traffic cones down so that people do not lose track of the road and end up driving into the sand during the experience on August 24.

Xinjiang is located deep inland and has a typical temperate continental climate with frequent droughts and low levels of precipitation, but you would not know if you saw the recent videos of the floods across a vast area of the desert.

According to Lu Xinsheng, a meteorologist from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Meteorological Service, the flood was a mixed-type flood caused by the combination of glacier and snow meltwater due to prolonged high temperatures and recent frequent rainfall.

The continuously rising temperatures caused mountain glaciers and snow to melt, increasing the water inflow of tributaries in the Tarim River Basin. Some rivers reached or exceeded warning levels and sparked floods.

In addition, the western part of southern Xinjiang has experienced frequent rainfall since August 19, with heavy rains occurring in parts of the mountainous areas.