The United Arab Emirates sees over 14cm of rain in a day, about as much as it expects in a year-and-a-half, as rain floods motorways and homes, causes schools to stay shut and forces people to work from home as flights are affected. There are claims cloud seeding is responsible.
Record rainfalls in the United Arab Emirates and the wider Gulf region have On Wednesday morning, Dubai International Airport said on X the flooding had left “limited transportation options” and “recovery will take some time”.
More than 14cm (5.6 inches) of rain soaked Dubai on Tuesday, around as much as normally falls in a year-and-a-half at Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel.
The heavy thunderstorms were “a historic weather event” that surpassed anything seen since records began in 1949, the state-run WAM news agency said.
Some reports have linked the extreme weather to “cloud seeding”, in which small planes flown by the government go through clouds burning special salt flares, which can increase precipitation.
Several quoted meteorologists at the National Centre for Meteorology as saying they flew six or seven cloud seeding flights before the rain.
Flight-tracking data showed that one aircraft linked to the UAE’s cloud seeding efforts flew around the country on Sunday.
The UAE, which relies heavily on energy-hungry desalination plants to provide water, carries out cloud seeding in part to increase its dwindling, limited groundwater. Skynews
