The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recorded the heaviest rain ever after a severe thunderstorm hit the country on Monday (April 15) late night, killing at least one person, causing damage to homes and businesses, and bringing air travel to a standstill in Dubai.
According to the state-run WAM news agency, the rain was “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949” — that was before the UAE was established in 1971.
Heavy rains are unusual in the UAE, which is an arid, Arabian Peninsula country. However, they occasionally occur in the region during cooler winter months.
Here is a look at what happened, what caused such heavy rainfall in the UAE, and if climate change is responsible for it.
What happened?
The thunderstorms began on Monday night and by Tuesday evening had dumped more than 142 millimetres (mm) of rain onto the desert city of Dubai. Usually, the city witnesses this much rain in a year and a half. An average year sees 94.7 millimetres of rain at Dubai International Airport — the world’s second busiest airport, which recorded more than 80 million visitors in 2023.
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.
Speaking to the Associated Press, one couple, on condition of anonymity, called the situation at the airport “absolute carnage.” “You cannot get a taxi. There are people sleeping in the Metro station. There’s people sleeping in the airport,” the man said on Wednesday.
Across Dubai, homes were flooded and vehicles were abandoned on roadways. Popular shopping centres like Dubai Mall and Mall of the Emirates were also flooded. Tanker trucks were sent onto the streets and highways to pump out the water.
The city of Al Ain, which is nearly 130 kilometres (km) away from Dubai, witnessed a record rainfall of 254 mm. Fujairah, located on the UAE’s eastern coast, saw 145 mm of rain on Tuesday.
Schools were shut across the UAE on Tuesday. In Dubai, the government extended work from home for its employees until Wednesday.
The UAE’s neighbour, Oman, also received a severe downpour, which killed 18 people, including “some 10 school children [were] swept away in a vehicle with an adult,” the AP reported.
What led to the heavy rains?
The primary reason for these heavy rains was a storm system, which was passing through the Arabian peninsula and moving across the Gulf of Oman.
According to a different report by the AP, rains could have been exacerbated by cloud seeding, a process of spraying salt mixtures in clouds that would result in condensation of the cloud and eventually cause rainfall.
“Several reports quoted meteorologists at the National Center for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud-seeding flights before the rains,” according to the AP report.
Is climate change responsible for the event?
Some experts have suggested that the soaring global temperatures could also be behind the event. Higher temperatures cause evaporation of water not only from land but also oceans and other water bodies, meaning a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. Studies have found that for every 1 degree Celsius rise in average temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture. This makes storms more dangerous as it leads to an increase in precipitation intensity, duration and/or frequency, which ultimately can cause severe flooding.
Studies based in India’s Thar desert and Australia’s desert regions have shown that climate change could lead to more rainfall in these areas.
While the average global temperature on the Earth has increased by at least 1.1 degree Celsius since 1850, the UAE has witnessed an increase of almost 1.5 degree Celsius in the past 60 years. The increase in temperatures is mainly caused by the rise of heat-trapping greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
However, it is extremely difficult to attribute any particular extreme weather event to climate change. It is because there are multiple factors, like patterns of natural climate variability, such as El Niño and La Niña, that contribute to such events.
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