UAE is a desert country in the Arabian Peninsula. Where the rainfall is rare. But sometimes, especially in the cooler winter months, it does rain. But what’s going on? and what’s the reason behind such heavy rainfall in Dubai.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) got hit by its heaviest rain ever after a big thunderstorm on Monday night (April 15). Sadly, one person died, and homes and businesses were damaged. In Dubai, flights were even stopped because of the rain. The state-run WAM news agency said it was the biggest rain ever since they started keeping records in 1949. Normally, the UAE doesn’t get much rain because it’s a dry place in the Arabian Peninsula. But sometimes, during the cooler winter months, it does rain a bit.
What caused this unusual weather event in the desert city?
The heavy rain started on Monday night and continued until Tuesday evening. In that time, Dubai got more than 142 millimeters of rain. Normally, Dubai only gets this much rain in a year and a half. The heavy rains led to disruption of air travel as flights were either diverted or delayed. According to airport authorities, operations were temporarily suspended for 25 minutes on Tuesday afternoon. Although heavy rains calmed down by late Tuesday, disruptions continued to Wednesday. Let us tell you that Dubai International Airport, the second busiest airport globally with over 80 million visitors in 2023, gets about 94.7 millimeters of rain in a whole year.
According to climate scientists, the heavy rains are part of a larger storm system traversing the Arabian Peninsula and moving across the Gulf of Oman, bringing unusually wet weather to the region. This system, fueled by the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, spawned multiple intense thunderstorms that dumped massive amounts of precipitation on Dubai. But the role of human activities, particularly the UAE’s cloud seeding program, is also under scrutiny. The country has been engaging in cloud seeding operations since the 2000s, a technique that involves dispersing chemicals or particles into the atmosphere to enhance rainfall.
The country faced a mess
A couple told the Associated Press that the airport was in a terrible mess. They couldn’t find a taxi, and lots of people were sleeping at the Metro station and the airport. In Dubai, homes were flooded, cars were left on the roads, and famous malls like Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates were flooded too. Tanker trucks were brought in to pump out the water from the streets. Al Ain, a city about 130 kilometers away from Dubai, had its heaviest rainfall ever, with 254 mm of rain. Fujairah, on the east coast of the UAE, got 145 mm of rain. Because of the heavy rain, schools all over the UAE were closed on Tuesday. the government passed orders to keep working from home until Wednesday.
Not just Dubai but also its neighboring country Oman, was hit hard by heavy rain. Unfortunately, 18 people lost their lives including 10 school children who were swept away in a car with an adult.
