“The worst weather ever,” said one. “I can’t believe I washed my car last night,” foamed another. “Will this weather ever end?” a third person moaned.
Breathless chatter about the UAE’s co-called “bad weather” has dominated offices, homes and countless social media channels over the past few months.
True, this has been one of the more seasonal winters of late featuring hail, rain, dust, thunder and lightning – and more is predicted today and tomorrow. But unpredictable weather is a feature of life here. Take 2016, when a huge storm swept through the UAE or November 2018, when rain and winds forced Louvre Abu Dhabi to cancel a gig by pop star Dua Lipa.
But if you think the past few days have been bad, spare a thought for those living here during the 1980s when water inundated the city.
Peter Hellyer, a consultant specialising in the UAE’s history, recalls heavy flooding in 1982 particularly.
“Low-lying areas of Abu Dhabi city set away from the main roads were flooded for weeks,” he said. “The internal roads in much of what was then called the Tourist Club area had not been completed and residents living there nicknamed it the ‘Lake District’.”
The city in 1982 was in the middle of a building boom, proper drainage was being developed and people had to get creative to reach their apartments.
“In parts of Khalidiyah, the water was so deep that, for a while, some people used little boats to row between their buildings and where they had parked their cars,” said Mr Hellyer. “That's an urban legend now - but it happened.”
Rain, of course, is not considered bad weather here. In a country with diminishing underground water reserves, a prayer for rain and an annual average rainfall of about 100mm - just 46.46mm fell in 2018 - we need every drop we can get.
But how much rain fell across the country during the 1980s is hard to quantify.
The lack of historical data is an issue as UAE-wide figures were only kept from the mid-2000s.
But Sharjah Airport is the exception. Records there date back to the mid-1930s when the airfield first opened as a British airforce base.
In 1982, at least 272mm of rain fell at the airport, according to data in Tribulus, the journal of the Emirates Natural History Group. Past years were even wetter. Take 1957, when a staggering 345mm of water fell at the airfield.
How does this compare today? Full figures have not been released this year but the highest ever monthly rainfall recorded by the National Centre of Meteorology since it started records in 2003 was 189mm at Razeen in the Abu Dhabi desert in April that same year. The highest monthly rainfall recorded so far this year was 86.4mm in March so 2019 cannot be described as the worst on record just yet.
Archive reports and photographs of the wild weather that hit the country in 1982 show parts of the Abu Dhabi Corniche flooded, damaged cars and huge standing pools of water in the main streets.
“Much of the land around buildings in areas such as the Tourist Club was still sand and so it was a quagmire,” said UK resident Richard Thompson, who arrived in Abu Dhabi in 1981 and remembers the 1982 floods.
“You got your feet wet and muddy, while cars got stuck as they went into holes in the sand you couldn’t see.”
Mr Thompson also remembers issues with mosquitos because of so much standing water. “Mosquito bite cream sales boomed,” he said.
So wet winters, dust and strong winds are the norm, not the exception over the longer term. And for anyone thinking the current bout of weather is unusual, perhaps say a quiet thank you that you don’t have to use a kayak to get into your building.
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
'Munich: The Edge of War'
Director: Christian Schwochow
Starring: George MacKay, Jannis Niewohner, Jeremy Irons
Rating: 3/5
JAPAN SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Masaaki Higashiguchi, Shuichi Gonda, Daniel Schmidt
Defenders: Yuto Nagatomo, Tomoaki Makino, Maya Yoshida, Sho Sasaki, Hiroki Sakai, Sei Muroya, Genta Miura, Takehiro Tomiyasu
Midfielders: Toshihiro Aoyama, Genki Haraguchi, Gaku Shibasaki, Wataru Endo, Junya Ito, Shoya Nakajima, Takumi Minamino, Hidemasa Morita, Ritsu Doan
Forwards: Yuya Osako, Takuma Asano, Koya Kitagawa
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
Abu Dhabi GP schedule
Friday: First practice - 1pm; Second practice - 5pm
Saturday: Final practice - 2pm; Qualifying - 5pm
Sunday: Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (55 laps) - 5.10pm
Stage result
1. Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix 4:42:34
2. Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Hansgrohe
3. Elia Viviani (Ita) Ineos Grenadiers
4. Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) BikeExchange-Jayco
5. Emils Liepins (Lat) Trek-Segafredo
6. Arnaud Demare (Fra) Groupama-FDJ
7. Max Kanter (Ger) Movistar Team
8. Olav Kooij (Ned) Jumbo-Visma
9. Tom Devriendt (Bel) Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux
10. Pascal Ackermann (Ger) UAE Team Emirate
BMW%20M4%20Competition
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Results
Male 51kg Round 1
Dias Karmanov (KAZ) beat Mabrook Rasea (YEM) by points 2-1.
Male 54kg Round 1
Yelaman Sayassatov (KAZ) beat Chen Huang (TPE) TKO Round 1; Huynh Hoang Phi (VIE) beat Fahad Anakkayi (IND) RSC Round 2; Qais Al Jamal (JOR) beat Man Long Ng (MAC) by points 3-0; Ayad Albadr (IRQ) beat Yashar Yazdani (IRI) by points 2-1.
Male 57kg Round 1
Natthawat Suzikong (THA) beat Abdallah Ondash (LBN) by points 3-0; Almaz Sarsembekov (KAZ) beat Ahmed Al Jubainawi (IRQ) by points 2-1; Hamed Almatari (YEM) beat Nasser Al Rugheeb (KUW) by points 3-0; Zakaria El Jamari (UAE) beat Yu Xi Chen (TPE) by points 3-0.
Men 86kg Round 1
Ahmad Bahman (UAE) beat Mohammad Al Khatib (PAL) by points 2-1
Men 63.5kg Round 1
Noureddin Samir (UAE) beat Polash Chakma (BAN) RSC Round 1.
Female 45kg quarter finals
Narges Mohammadpour (IRI) beat Yuen Wai Chan (HKG) by points.
Female 48kg quarter finals
Szi Ki Wong (HKG) beat Dimple Vaishnav (IND) RSC round 2; Thanawan Thongduang (THA) beat Nastaran Soori (IRI) by points; Shabnam Hussain Zada (AFG) beat Tzu Ching Lin (TPE) by points.
Female 57kg quarter finals
Nguyen Thi Nguyet (VIE) beat Anisha Shetty (IND) by points 2-1; Areeya Sahot (THA) beat Dana Al Mayyal (KUW) RSC Round 1; Sara Idriss (LBN) beat Ching Yee Tsang (HKG) by points 3-0.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
How to help
Call the hotline on 0502955999 or send "thenational" to the following numbers:
2289 - Dh10
2252 - Dh50
6025 - Dh20
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Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
Company%20Profile
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ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
