A person stands surrounded by flood water caused by heavy rains, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on April 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) struggled on April 18 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 April 18 morning to again fly into Terminal 1 at the airfield.

In the below post shared by the Dubai Media Office, a cat that has been clinging on to a car door is being saved by rescuers

“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 on April 16, had stopped travellers 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 April 18, 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 April 16, more than 142 millimetres (5.59 inches) of rainfall had soaked Dubai over 24 hours. An average year sees 94.7 millimetres (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 neighbourhoods, 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 April 18, 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.

Also read | Artificial rain to fix pollution remains a nebulous science

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 on April 18 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.

A person walks towards cars stranded in flood water caused by heavy rains, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A storm hit the United Arab Emirates and Oman this week bringing record rainfall that flooded highways, inundated houses, grid-locked traffic and trapped people in their homes.

At least 20 people were reported to have died in the deluge in Oman while another person was said to have died in floods in the UAE that closed government offices and schools for days.

The storm had initially hit Oman on Sunday before it pounded the UAE on Tuesday, knocking out power and causing huge disruptions to flights as runways were turned into rivers.

ALSO READ | Artificial rain to fix pollution remains a nebulous science

In the UAE, a record 254 millimetres (10 inches) of rainfall was recorded in Al Ain, a city bordering Oman. It was the largest ever in a 24-hour period since records started in 1949.

Did cloud seeding cause the storm?

Rainfall is rare in the UAE and elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, that is typically known for its dry desert climate. Summer air temperatures can soar above 50 degrees Celsius.

But the UAE and Oman also lack drainage systems to cope with heavy rains and submerged roads are not uncommon during rainfall.

Following Tuesday’s events, questions were raised whether cloud seeding, a process that the UAE frequently conducts, could have caused the heavy rains.

Cloud seeding is a process in which chemicals are implanted into clouds to increase rainfall in an environment where water scarcity is a concern.

The UAE, located in one of the hottest and driest regions on earth, has been leading the effort to seed clouds and increase precipitation.

But the UAE’s meteorology agency told Reuters there were no such operations before the storm.

What about climate change?

The huge rainfall was instead likely due to a normal weather system that was exacerbated by climate change, experts say.

A low pressure system in the upper atmosphere, coupled with low pressure at the surface had acted like a pressure ‘squeeze’ on the air, according to Esraa Alnaqbi, a senior forecaster at the UAE government’s National Centre of Meteorology.

That squeeze, intensified by the contrast between warmer temperatures at ground level and colder temperatures higher up, created the conditions for the powerful thunderstorm, she said.

The “abnormal phenomenon” was not unexpected in April as when the season changes the pressure changes rapidly, she said, adding that climate change also likely contributed to the storm.

Climate scientists say that rising global temperatures, caused by human-led climate change, is leading to more extreme weather events around the world, including intense rainfall.

“Rainfall from thunderstorms, like the ones seen in UAE in recent days, sees a particular strong increase with warming. This is because convection, which is the strong updraft in thunderstorms, strengthens in a warmer world,” said Dim Coumou, a professor in climate extremes at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Cannot create clouds from nothing

Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, said rainfall was becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. It was misleading to talk about cloud seeding as the cause of the heavy rainfall, she said.

“Cloud seeding can’t create clouds from nothing. It encourages water that is already in the sky to condense faster and drop water in certain places. So first, you need moisture. Without it, there’d be no clouds,” she said.

Global warming has resulted in “extraordinarily” warm water in the seas around Dubai, where there is also very warm air above, said Mark Howden, Director at the Australian National University’s Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions.

“This increases both potential evaporation rates and the capacity of the atmosphere to hold that water, allowing bigger dumps of rainfall such as what we have just seen in Dubai.”

Gabi Hegerl, a climatologist at Edinburgh University, said that extreme rainfall, like in the UAE and Oman, was likely to get worse in many places due to the effects of climate change.

When conditions are perfect for really heavy rain, there’s more moisture in the air, so it rains harder. This extra moisture is because the air is warmer, which is because of human-caused climate change, she said.

A person walks towards cars stranded in flood water caused by heavy rains, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A storm hit the United Arab Emirates and Oman this week bringing record rainfall that flooded highways, inundated houses, grid-locked traffic and trapped people in their homes.

At least 20 people were reported to have died in the deluge in Oman while another person was said to have died in floods in the UAE that closed government offices and schools for days.

Also read | Artificial rain to fix pollution remains a nebulous science

The storm had initially hit Oman on Sunday before it pounded the UAE on Tuesday, knocking out power and causing huge disruptions to flights as runways were turned into rivers.

In the UAE, a record 254 millimetres (10 inches) of rainfall was recorded in Al Ain, a city bordering Oman. It was the largest ever in a 24-hour period since records started in 1949.

Did cloud seeding cause the storm?

Rainfall is rare in the UAE and elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, that is typically known for its dry desert climate. Summer air temperatures can soar above 50 degrees Celsius.

But the UAE and Oman also lack drainage systems to cope with heavy rains and submerged roads are not uncommon during rainfall.

Following Tuesday’s events, questions were raised whether cloud seeding, a process that the UAE frequently conducts, could have caused the heavy rains.

Cloud seeding is a process in which chemicals are implanted into clouds to increase rainfall in an environment where water scarcity is a concern.

The UAE, located in one of the hottest and driest regions on earth, has been leading the effort to seed clouds and increase precipitation.

But the UAE’s meteorology agency told Reuters there were no such operations before the storm.

What about climate change?

The huge rainfall was instead likely due to a normal weather system that was exacerbated by climate change, experts say.

A low pressure system in the upper atmosphere, coupled with low pressure at the surface had acted like a pressure ‘squeeze’ on the air, according to Esraa Alnaqbi, a senior forecaster at the UAE government’s National Centre of Meteorology.

That squeeze, intensified by the contrast between warmer temperatures at ground level and colder temperatures higher up, created the conditions for the powerful thunderstorm, she said.

The “abnormal phenomenon” was not unexpected in April as when the season changes the pressure changes rapidly, she said, adding that climate change also likely contributed to the storm.

Climate scientists say that rising global temperatures, caused by human-led climate change, is leading to more extreme weather events around the world, including intense rainfall.

“Rainfall from thunderstorms, like the ones seen in UAE in recent days, sees a particular strong increase with warming. This is because convection, which is the strong updraft in thunderstorms, strengthens in a warmer world,” said Dim Coumou, a professor in climate extremes at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Cannot create clouds from nothing

Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London, said rainfall was becoming much heavier around the world as the climate warms because a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. It was misleading to talk about cloud seeding as the cause of the heavy rainfall, she said.

“Cloud seeding can’t create clouds from nothing. It encourages water that is already in the sky to condense faster and drop water in certain places. So first, you need moisture. Without it, there’d be no clouds,” she said.

Global warming has resulted in “extraordinarily” warm water in the seas around Dubai, where there is also very warm air above, said Mark Howden, Director at the Australian National University’s Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions.

“This increases both potential evaporation rates and the capacity of the atmosphere to hold that water, allowing bigger dumps of rainfall such as what we have just seen in Dubai.”

Gabi Hegerl, a climatologist at Edinburgh University, said that extreme rainfall, like in the UAE and Oman, was likely to get worse in many places due to the effects of climate change.

When conditions are perfect for really heavy rain, there’s more moisture in the air, so it rains harder. This extra moisture is because the air is warmer, which is because of human-caused climate change, she said.