Storm dumps heaviest rain ever recorded in desert nation, flooding roads and Dubai’s international airport.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of climate change on extreme weather events, said it was “highly likely” that global warming had worsened the storms.
Published On 17 Apr 2024
A torrential downpour has left Dubai’s highways clogged by floodwaters and passengers were urged to stay away from the airport as the glitzy financial centre reeled from record rains.
The United Arab Emirates witnessed unprecedented rainfall with 254mm (10 inches) falling in Al Ain on Tuesday in less than 24 hours, according to the National Centre of Meteorology. That was the most since records began in 1949, before the country was established in 1971.
Although the heavy rains had eased by late Tuesday, disruptions were continuing on Wednesday with Dubai’s flagship Emirates airlines suspending check-in for passengers departing Dubai airport until midnight.
Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest, said it was facing significant disruptions after the rains delayed or diverted flights.
“Flights continue to be delayed and diverted … We are working hard to recover operations as quickly as possible in very challenging conditions,” an airport spokesperson said.
Staff and passengers struggled to arrive and leave the airport, with access roads flooded and some metro services suspended.
Huge tailbacks snaked along six-lane expressways. A 70-year-old man died after he was swept away in his car in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the country’s seven emirates, police said.
The storms hit the UAE and Bahrain overnight Monday and on Tuesday after lashing Oman, where 18 people were killed, including several children.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of climate change on extreme weather events, said it was “highly likely” that global warming had worsened the storms.
Huge tailbacks snaked along six-lane expressways. A 70-year-old man died after he was swept away in his car in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the country’s seven emirates, police said.
The storms hit the UAE and Bahrain overnight Monday and on Tuesday after lashing Oman, where 18 people were killed, including several children.
Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of climate change on extreme weather events, said it was “highly likely” that global warming had worsened the storms.
Schools across the UAE were largely shut before the storm and government employees were mostly working remotely. [Anadolu]
Lightning flashes through the sky during heavy rainfall in Dubai. [Ali Haider/EPA]
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/4/17/dubai-reels-from-flood-chaos-as-record-rains-lash-uae
UAE struggles to recover after heaviest recorded rainfall ever hits desert nation – Naharnet
The United Arab Emirates struggled Thursday to recover from the heaviest recorded rainfall ever to hit the desert nation, as its main airport worked to restore normal operations even as floodwater still covered portions of major highways and roads.
Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, allowed global carriers on Thursday morning to again fly into Terminal 1 at the airfield.
“Flights continue to be delayed and disrupted, so we urge you to only come to Terminal 1 if you have a confirmed booking,” the airport said on the social platform X.
The long-haul carrier Emirates, whose operations had been struggling since the storm Tuesday, had stopped travelers flying out of the UAE from checking into their flights as they tried to move out connecting passengers. Pilots and flight crews had been struggling to reach the airport given the water on roadways. But on Thursday, they lifted that order to allow customers into the airport.
Others who arrived at the airport described hourslong waits to get their baggage, with some just giving up to head home or to whatever hotel would have them.
The UAE, a hereditarily ruled, autocratic nation on the Arabian Peninsula, typically sees little rainfall in its arid desert climate. However, a massive storm forecasters had been warning about for days blew through the country’s seven sheikhdoms.
By the end of Tuesday, more than 142 millimeters (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimeters (3.73 inches) of rain at Dubai International Airport. Other areas of the country saw even more precipitation.
The UAE’s drainage systems quickly became overwhelmed, flooding out neighborhoods, business districts and even portions of the 12-lane Sheikh Zayed Road highway running through Dubai.
The state-run WAM news agency called the rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.”
In a message to the nation late Wednesday, Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, said authorities would “quickly work on studying the condition of infrastructure throughout the UAE and to limit the damage caused.”
On Thursday, people waded through oil-slicked floodwater to reach cars earlier abandoned, checking to see if their engines still ran. Tanker trucks with vacuums began reaching some areas outside of Dubai’s downtown core for the first time as well. Schools remain closed until next week.
Authorities have offered no overall damage or injury information from the floods, which killed at least one person.
“Crises reveal the strength of countries and societies,” Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, wrote on X. “The natural climate crisis that we experienced showed the great care, awareness, cohesion and love for every corner of the country from all its citizens and residents.”
The flooding sparked speculation that the UAE’s aggressive campaign of cloud seeding — flying small planes through clouds dispersing chemicals aimed at getting rain to fall — may have contributed to the deluge. But experts said the storm systems that produced the rain were forecast well in advance and that cloud seeding alone would not have caused such flooding.
Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections, said the flooding in Dubai was caused by an unusually strong low pressure system that drove many rounds of heavy thunderstorms.
Scientists also say climate change is responsible for more intense and more frequent extreme storms, droughts, floods and wildfires around the world. Dubai hosted the United Nations’ COP28 climate talks just last year.
Abu Dhabi’s state-linked newspaper The National in an editorial Thursday described the heavy rains as a warning to countries in the wider Persian Gulf region to “climate-proof their futures.”
“The scale of this task is more daunting that it appears even at first glance, because such changes involve changing the urban environment of a region that for as long as it has been inhabited, has experienced little but heat and sand,” the newspaper said.
Source. Associated Press