Chaos ensued in the United Arab Emirates after the country witnessed the heaviest rainfall in 75 years, with some areas recording more than 250 mm of precipitation in fewer than 24 hours, the state’s media office said in a statement Wednesday.
The rainfall, which flooded streets, uprooted palm trees and shattered building facades, has never been seen in the Middle Eastern nation since records began in 1949. In the popular tourist destination Dubai, flights were canceled, traffic came to a halt and schools closed.
One-hundred millimeters (nearly 4 inches) of rain fell over the course of just 12 hours on Tuesday, according to weather observations at the airport – around what Dubai usually records in an entire year, according to United Nations data.
The rain fell so heavily and so quickly that some motorists were forced to abandon their vehicles as the floodwater rose and roads turned into rivers.
So that’s where our PNW rain went
4 inches in 12 hours
laughs in Florida
Also, that’s what she said!
I looked at the vids of the airport in Dubai yesterday, and it was quite a show. What occurred to me is that they hadn’t engineered for water runoff because it would rarely be needed. Sandy ground would soak up that stuff, but pave the same area and you have standing water without runoff.
Talked to a civil engineer a while back, and some of the ways they have to mitigate sand is the opposite of how they mitigate water. Makes it difficult to handle both situations with one solution.
That actually makes sense. During my teenage years surveying for the highway department, we used to have to take ground samples. I guess it was not in vain.
Sandy ground would soak up that stuff
This is kind of a myth, maybe if we think of loose sand like the Sahara, but dry ground acts very similar to paved ground. That’s why the mixture of long droughts and heavy rainfall are so devastating. The rain just washes over the dried hardened ground and causes flooding instead of getting soaked up and filling the ground water reserves.
Dubai is bordered by the Arabian Desert
Yeah, but it isn’t getting swallowed by dunes.
If you’ve ever been to that part of the world, it pretty much is.
Uncommon global warming W?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Chaos ensued in the United Arab Emirates after the country witnessed the heaviest rainfall in 75 years, with some areas recording more than 250 mm of precipitation in fewer than 24 hours, the state’s media office said in a statement Wednesday.
One-hundred millimeters (nearly 4 inches) of rain fell over the course of just 12 hours on Tuesday, according to weather observations at the airport – around what Dubai usually records in an entire year, according to United Nations data.
Disruption to airport operations continued into Wednesday, after the storm had cleared, with access roads blocked by flooding and multiple airlines including flag carrier Emirates reporting flight delays.
Emirates suspended check-in for passengers departing Dubai from 8 a.m. local time on Wednesday until midnight on Thursday due to “operational challengers caused by bad weather and road conditions.”
In the Dubai Marina, a manmade canal lined with skyscrapers and retail outlets, furniture from nearby restaurants could be seen washed away by strong currents.
Delivery services stopped functioning and many Dubai residents were unable to leave their homes due to waterlogged streets, which cars and pedestrians couldn’t access.
The original article contains 812 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
They messed up the cloud seeding dosage again
There is no technology on earth that can make storms of this scale. Cloud seeding doesn’t add any water to the cloud. At most, it causes a very slight increase in rain. If you accidentally cloud seed “too much” you nucleate lots of ice crystals within the cloud, making many tiny ice crystals (which don’t precipitate at all).
They didn’t seed this cloud - but it wouldn’t have done anything if they had.
I think it’s more accurate to say the only technology that could cause a storm like this is all of the technology together. As our technology is certainly making storms worsen, just not intentionally.
If you mean climate change, then yeah, obviously humans do influence the climate. In terms of individual scale events (weather, big storms) there’s not any existing technology that exists that can cause a single targeted big storm event.
The funny thing is - the state official that is responsible for a current flooding in Russia just ran to Dubai. Where should he go next? He need to hurry until the curse wears off.
