The Arabia Weather Center publishes a scientific report on the rare rain event that affected the Emirates and the region during the past week

The Arab Regional Weather Center issued a report on the exceptional rain condition that affected the Emirates and the Arabian Gulf region in general from the middle of last week, April 14 to 16, which was accompanied by extremely heavy rains and huge amounts of rain in record time, which led to the occurrence of... Floods that submerged roads, disrupted traffic, and trapped people in their homes. 20 people were reported to have died in the Sultanate of Oman, may God have mercy on them. Video clips from the city of Dubai also showed streets and neighborhoods completely flooded with water, and the water entered some homes and shopping centers.

In terms of numbers, record rainfall amounting to 255 mm was recorded in the “Khatm al-Shukla” area in the Emirati city of Al Ain, which is the largest amount of rain ever to fall in the country in less than 24 hours since the beginning of climate records, that is, since 1949. As the center indicated The National Bureau of Meteorology stated that the average rainfall throughout the country during the period of the effect of the depression amounted to about 100 mm, and the quantities of water were estimated at 6.04 billion cubic meters of water.

The weather patterns causing - God willing - the severe rain event that affected the region

Specialists at the Arabia Weather Center point out that shortly before the rainy event that affected the Arabian Peninsula (i.e. the beginning of the second third of April 2024), the formation of very strong air highs was observed in the Arctic region, and these strong air highs forced the rushing air masses From the North Pole (cold air masses) by circling those heights and rushing to the regions of southern Europe and the regions of the Middle East.

This disturbance in the polar vortex caused an exceptional decline of the jet stream south of the Arabian Peninsula and approached tropical regions! As a result, the depression and the cold air mass accompanying the Arabian Gulf Basin region deepened, leading to a huge cooling difference between the upper and lower layers of the atmosphere.

The specialists at the center add that as the depression gradually approached the atmosphere of the Arabian Peninsula, and the positioning of the air depression over the Arabian Sea, the latter supplied enormous moisture with tropical characteristics from several axes towards the depression.

These weather conditions coincided, God willing, with the presence of a humid phase with effective convection (MJO) over the western Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, in a combination of weather conditions that do not occur often, which together caused a historic spring condition.

Did rain seeding or climate change play a role in the floods?

The specialists at the Arabia Weather Center said that cloud seeding (cloud seeding) does not create clouds out of nowhere, but rather it may increase if weather conditions are prepared for that. Moreover, cloud seeding cannot produce these amounts of rain, but rather the cloud seeding process may be able to deal with it. With a cumulus cloud in a very narrow geographical range, the operation may succeed or may fail.

Returning to the results of computer forecasts simulating rainfall several days before the impact of the rainy event, these products actually predicted (and they do not take the potential effects of cloud seeding into account) that huge amounts of rain would fall on the Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman during the period of the depression’s impact.

The specialists at the Arabia Weather Center also believe that this severe rain event cannot be considered conclusive evidence that it is due to climate change, but they said that it may be an indication of that, especially since global warming causes an increase in the levels of water vapor in the atmosphere and thus an increase in the strength of the cumulonimbus clouds.

What may prove the hypothesis that climate change has indeed played a role in the rainy season is the observed increase in air humidity in Dubai by more than 7% over the past 80 years, and this trend witnessed by the climate in Dubai reflects the general trend of the planet as a whole. At the same time, many scientists and activists around the globe are studying the rain condition that affected the Arabian Peninsula region and its direct relationship to climate change or not.