Rain in the UAE

I did not see rain for the first 18 months that I lived here. There was one morning 7 months after my arrival that I saw some wet spots on the road and assumed that maybe it had rained but I had never actually seen it rain. 

In February 2013, one night it POURED. This is nothing to those of us from the Northeastern U.S. who are used to driving in torrential downpours, but when you are on the roads with others who do not know how to drive in rain, it can be dangerous. Since rain is not a common occurrence here, there is no drainage system on the roads and they do tend to flood even in the lightest rains. I made it the 75 miles from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain without incident. 

After this, I did not see rain again until November 2013. Unfortunately I have now seen too much of it. On that first occasion, only 13 of my 25 students showed up for school though it had not even started to rain yet. The Ministry of Education ordered schools closed before noon that day and we hadn’t even seen a single raindrop.That day, I heard stories of how the school was closed for 3 days in 2006 due to flooding and for a week a few years before that. Most staff members expected school to be closed the following day.

This country can build the world’s tallest building, the tallest hotel, the tallest building with a 90° turn, and the fastest roller coaster BUT a little rain SHUT IT DOWN!

That weekend most of the parking lots in my neighborhood were flooded and yet I never saw any amount of rain beyond a sprinkling. During winter break, while I was relaxing in Abu Dhabi, I saw the front page of the National……cars in an area not far from me submerged to the headlights n water. Glad I missed that one. 

Flooding near my flat in Sharjah. Nothing in Abu Dhabi, where I was sunning on the beach.

Several times the week of January 5-9, it rained and the parking lot at school was a little rough to get through. The guard put out pavers for us to get through the water. 

A real gentleman would have carried us across,

The night of January 11, once again, I had to drive 70 miles from Abu Dhabi to Sharjah in the rain. Drivers fell into 2 categories, those who wouldn’t break 80 in a 120 zone, and those traveling at 160 through the lakes that made up the passing lane. I settled in at a comfortable 100 and made it home safely. 

On the heels of the sandstorms yesterday and today, it is raining tonight. Well, for here it is rain. To people from New Jersey this is not rain. Since some pulley thing went in the passenger window of my car, the window is open about 2 inches. It has been like this for two months and I see no reason to spend the money to have it repaired. I was driving earlier, without more than a few spits coming into my car because it was just sprinkling…yet this was just posted by a friend driving back from a nearby mall.   

Barely raining and parking lots and roads are flooded. WTF?