Storm dumps heaviest rain recorded in UAE
The United Arab Emirates is attempting to dry out after the heaviest rain ever recorded in the desert nation.
The deluge flooded Dubai International Airport, disrupting flights through the world’s busiest hub for international travel.
The state-run WAM news agency called Tuesday’s rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949”. That was before the discovery of crude oil in the energy-rich nation which was then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States.
Rain also fell in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
One reason for the acute rain in the UAE may have been “cloud seeding”, in which small planes flown by the government go through clouds burning special salt flares. Those flares can increase precipitation.
Several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Centre for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloudseeding flights before the rain. The centre did not immediately respond to questions yesterday, though flight-tracking data showed one aircraft affiliated with the UAE'S cloudseeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday.
The UAE, which relies heavily on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, carries out cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater.
The rain began late on Monday with 20mm (3/4in), according to meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport.
The storms intensified on Tuesday and continued throughout the day, dumping more rain and hail on the overwhelmed city.
By the end of Tuesday, more than 142mm (5.6in) had fallen over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7mm of rain at Dubai International Airport, a hub for the long-haul carrier Emirates. At the airport, arrivals were halted on Tuesday night, and passengers struggled to reach terminals through the floodwater covering surrounding roads.
One couple, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely in a country with strict laws that criminalise critical speech, called the situation at the airport “absolute carnage”.
Schools across the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, largely shut ahead of the storm and government employees were largely working remotely if able.
The country’s hereditary rulers offered no overall damage or injury information.
In Ras al-khaimah, the country’s northernmost emirate, police said one 70-year-old man died when his vehicle was swept away by floodwater.
Rain is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months. Many roads and other areas lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, causing flooding.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, at least 18 people were killed in heavy rain.
That includes ten schoolchildren swept away in a vehicle with an adult.