Category Archives: Weather

Armageddon on Al Qudra

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It’s been an unusual day, to say the least.

Children in the UAE might have squealed with delight as they paddled up and down the street in inflatables and sailed boats to the supermarket (no joke) …

kids having fun in rain

Lucky kids: School’s out again tomorrow

But me – well I lost my mojo somewhere on Al Qudra street – about an hour into the apocalyptic traffic jam attempting to inch its way through biblical floods last seen by Noah.

It all started at 4am, with an enormous crash of thunder. Lightning sliced the sky. But even then, the morning school run was fine – just a disappointed son to contend with following the cancellation of his school trip. Actually, he was more worried about the fact his lunch was in a plastic Spinneys bag (as requested by the teacher). “Mummy, go home and get my lunch box!” he pleaded while I tried to stop him lobbing his sandwiches away.

The sky quickly turned a scrubbed pigeon grey then a really ominous granite colour, sort of slated and solemn. Daylight made only a feeble attempt to break through the billowing cloud cover. The rain, when it came, drummed wildly on our roof. It lashed the windows, cascaded off our garage in a waterfall, and collected in huge ‘ponds’ that within an hour or so all joined up to form floods the size of lakes.

The schools closed, I can’t even begin to imagine what happened at the airports. Buildings flooded, structural damage occurred and the traffic snarled up until it grid-locked so badly I took a big chance and swerved onto sand in the hope of ploughing my way through a building site to escape the Armageddon on Al Qudra (I made it!).

This Dubai driver didn't make it

This Dubai driver didn’t make it


The children, meanwhile, went out in their swimming gear. A neighbour took his canoe for a paddle round the compound. Ironically, the water cut off in our villa – I did see the funny side of this, given that outside it was knee-deep, with waves rippling up the path every time a car swished by, wheels hissing. The lights started flickering … “Picked a great week for our winter-sun holiday, didn’t we?” said my Mum as she Facebooked photos of the rain for the amusement of British friends and family.

Her last photo, of tankers vacuuming up the rainwater through giant straws, was captioned: “Now we’ve seen it all!”

Dubai really doesn’t do rain.

Keep safe tomorrow everyone.

Dust storm leaves sand all over the furniture

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My parents are visiting at the moment, mainly to see the grandchildren, but also because it’s cold in the UK and they fancied a week of sunshine.

Okay, no laughing at the back!

We ventured out at the weekend, into the giant dust-ball that’s engulfed the country – otherwise known as a sandstorm. It billowed and swirled for two days straight, chucking sand everywhere, and filling the sky with a thick, fog-like dust; all weekend the daylight was tinged with yellow and stretched long and thin.

Hitting the UAE from Saudi Arabia, the sandstorm settled in like slow blindness, sucking the colour from the sky, the sun (you could even look straight at it) and the cars on the road. Driving became hazardous as the visibility dropped, and stepping outside meant sand blowing into your hair, mouth, eyes and ears – the blustery conditions really did give a new meaning to the term ‘yukky weather’, with more sand yet to come.

I was having visions of being swallowed up by the desert, while innocently on our way to watch Shaun the Sheep, and could see the headline in my mind: ‘Expats vanish in Barsha triangle’.

And, it’s when these sandstorms hit that you realise just how poorly sealed our houses are. This photo was taken by my lovely neighbour B, inside her villa! Good luck with the clean-up everyone. 🙂

My desk where I blog is by the window and was also covered in a thin layer of sand!

My desk where I blog is by the window and was also covered in a thin layer of sand … clogged up sinuses, anyone?

Rain scrooge – yep, that’s me!

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I’m well aware there are lots of people in Dubai who love it when it rains – and I really do hope they enjoy the annual downpour. But I’m beginning to wonder if these people have actually been out in the rain – or afterwards, when the floods are knee deep.

Given that rain is a fairly rare event in our patch of desert (maybe a few times a year), I can’t resist doing a quick pictorial on the blog, of the almost biblical event that is a decent rain-shower and the apocalyptic aftermath of a blustery and thundery night.

While we slept … ET phone home!

Lightning sliced the sky, and thunder rolled. Pic courtesy of futureofdubai.com

Lightning sliced the sky, and thunder rolled. Pic courtesy of futureofdubai.com

If I’d looked on Facebook before leaving the house, I might have seen this photo, forewarning of what lay ahead at the roundabout on the school run … (rain, meh!)

Up to the doors in places - and even posh cars get stuck. This is a Rolls-Royce! Pic courtesy of Dubai 92, Catboy & Geordiebird

Up to the doors in places – and even posh cars get stranded. This is a Rolls-Royce! Pic courtesy of Dubai 92, Catboy & Geordiebird

Left: But at least while stuck for an hour-and-a-half on the way to school, there was lots to look at. Right: And a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about attempting to skip the backed-up patient traffic!

Left: But at least while stuck for an hour-and-a-half on the way to school, there’s lots to look at. Right: And a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about attempting to skip the backed-up patient traffic!

Finally through the traffic, we find ourselves on the road to school, which looks like a canal in places …

Might look like a canal, but it is a road (I begin to wonder if we'll make it)

I begin to wonder if we’ll make it

Left: The ampitheatre at school: “Look Mummy! It’s a duck pond!” Right: Vacuuming starts all around the city-with-no-drains

Left: The ampitheatre at school: “Look Mummy! It’s a duck pond!” Right: Vacuuming starts all around the city-with-no-drains

And the final hurdle … waves outside work! If I’d known, I’d have borrowed a yacht.

photo-449

But just to prove I’m not a complete rain scrooge, and that there is a silver lining in every cloud … this was the view outside my office window for all of two minutes:

Where's the gold? (I believe it's in a vending machine at the Madinat)

Where’s the gold? (I believe it’s in a vending machine at the Madinat)

Silent Sunday: The furnace

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They say you know you’ve been living in the Middle East for too long when a problem with your car’s air-conditioning or horn is more serious to you than a problem with the brakes. I think this picture illustrates quite nicely why:

That’s almost 115 °F. With a sandstorm blowing today too, I felt like I was navigating my way through Jupiter’s red spot.

That’s almost 115 °F. With a sandstorm blowing today too, I felt like I was navigating my way through Jupiter’s red spot.


PS: When it’s this hot outside, do you think: “46 degrees? Quick, open the car window!” After six sticky summers of clambering sweatily into hot cars, I’ve just read on a blog that breathing in the fumes from an enclosed space jammed with super-heated plastics every time you get into your vehicle is like doing glue from hot vinyl bottles! Like I needed another thing to worry about!

The Dubai ‘yes’ (read: no)

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Last week, on the day of all that rain, DH and I did the school run together and decided to get some breakfast before going home.

We splash through the rain and walk into one of my favourite places, which if I tell you has period-inspired, chintzy décor and looks like a dolls’ house (think pink), you’ll know where I mean if you live locally.

It’s raining hard and we run from the car park, so I don’t really look around until we’ve stepped over the cardboard mopping up the rainwater and entered via the back door.

It’s dark inside. Not pitch black, but gloomy enough that we know immediately we won’t be able to read the paper, or even see what we’re eating. There’s obviously some kind of power cut, and, apart from the wait staff, there isn’t a soul inside.

The culinary trend for dining in the dark reaches Arabian Ranches

The culinary trend for dining in the dark reaches Arabian Ranches

“Come in!” welcomes a waiter with a megawatt smile. “Wet isn’t it? Come, sit down.”

We’re not quite sure what to do. The waiter motions again towards a table and gestures for us to be seated.

“Are you open?” I enquire. “It’s dark!” I add, stating the obvious. My stomach lets out a low rumble of hunger.

“Yes, yes, we’re open. Just a small problem with the lights.”

I’m reminded of the equally optimistic taxi driver my visiting BF came across last week, who told her he knew where to drop her, but didn’t have a clue and needed help reading the signs (“Bad eyes,” he’d tutted.)

“But can you still cook?” I ask the waiter politely. I peer around the eerily quiet restaurant and spot four or five shadowy figures with tools in a corner, huddled around a circuit-breaker box. “Does the kitchen have power?”

“Ah,” our waiter replies, unsure. “Let me just check on that.”

DH and I stifle a laugh. Through the hatch, we can see the kitchen is also undergoing a black-out.

“We’ll come back later,” we tell him and bid him farewell. And I wonder: Do we look like the kind of couple whose idea of a decent meal out is hanging around like bats in the semi darkness with no food? 🙂 Or maybe the restaurant wasn’t trying to sell food, but instead offer a public service to wet expats who don’t own an umbrella.

Funny ole thing customer service in Dubai.

Outside my work: A day of rain and Dubai drowns

Outside my work: A day of rain and Dubai drowns

Summer: The elephant in the room

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I was out for dinner the other night with my parents and a lovely couple who’d recently moved to Dubai. They’d swapped everything they knew and loved in Surrey for a new life on the Palm, and had thrown themselves into the frenetic world of work, Middle East style.

We talked about how she’d already taken a (temporary) job that involved commuting to Abu Dhabi (I was impressed, that road isn’t for the faint hearted, even with a driver). And we talked about their daughters, embarking on adult lives on different continents.

Then, all of a sudden, there it was: the elephant at the table. Amid all the promise of beach trips, handbag shopping and desert safaris, there’s a hurdle all UAE residents face: the Dubai summer. “We won’t be able to get back to the UK until much later in the year,” she told us. “We’ll be here all summer.”

My mum looked aghast! I’m sure she visibly paled. (March is their preferred month to visit, and I do understand why.)

She's clinging on to her scarf and boots until sweat patches appear

She’s clinging on to her scarf and boots until sweat patches appear

I immediately tried to soothe things over: “It’s not too bad,” I said. “Honestly.” I attempted to explain that lots more women stay now, the city’s much quieter and working through the summer is no problem. (It’s when you have small children climbing the walls and bankrupting you every day for 10 weeks that you start throwing plates around.)

I’m posting on this subject because those of us who live here are sharing a similar sentiment this week: IT’S COMING!

We’ve entered that murky zone where you’re trying not to turn the AC on, but give in. Firms that offer AC cleaning are working round the clock, and if you pull on a pair of jeans in the morning, by lunchtime you’re peeling them off to don your summer staples of shorts and flip flops (again).

At the school gates, comments are being bandied around to the tune of “It’s warming up” and “Winter’s over”. Unless you’re particularly stubborn or sweat-proof, the scarves and wraps have been put away, boots consigned to the back of the cupboard.

Give it a few more weeks of rising temperatures and we’ll all be asking each other: “So, when are you leaving?”

Fog: Dubai’s Achilles’ heel

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At 6.45am this morning, I peered outside our bedroom window to see the everyday familiar sights of our street draped in a silky mist; the villas, carports and road hidden from view by a dense, semolina-souper, surely the worst fog of the season so far.

By 7.30am, we’d ventured into the whitened haze, on our way to school. Cars loomed into view at the last second, like images from some half-forgotten dream. Son2 was on the edge of his seat with excitement, loving the inclement weather (beats the continual blues skies in his opinion) and rolled down his window hoping the swirling vapour would enter the car.

“Are we driving in the clouds?” he asked, as I almost closed my eyes with anxiety (I wasn’t at the wheel!). You could just about see the white line marking the lane, but the upcoming roundabout, roadworks and drivers who incredibly had forgotten to put their headlights on were totally obscured by the thick fog. We were driving blind, literally.

This was a relatively clear patch - elsewhere it was white-out

This was a relatively clear patch – elsewhere it was white-out and planes had to circle for up to two hours

“It’s Dubai’s Achilles’ heel,” remarked DH, because when the fog is this bad, the delays at the airport ricochet all around the world for hours afterwards, affecting tens of thousands of passengers (hopefully the problem will be alleviated this summer, after work is carried out on the runway to upgrade the lighting).

Later on, as the fog lifted, it felt like we were in a blue movie as the sunshine filtered through the wispy mist, burning it off to nothing. I breathed easily again – both children were safely in school and we had a busy day ahead, ending with the Eric Clapton concert tonight.

Then DH’s phone rings. It’s scheduling. He’s not meant to go to work until tomorrow, but due to the fog and all the delays, he has a car coming to pick him up in 45 minutes. My best-laid plans scuppered by my DH being sent to the end of the world (New Zealand).

Darn fog.

Still, the lucky recipient is my Dad! My parents are staying, and he’s agreed to come with me to the concert. Rock on, Dad!

The big chill

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It’s all relative, I know, but it really is quite chilly in the desert right now. And for the few weeks each year that this happens (Winter light, as I call it), it’s as though my children think we’re living in Alaska.

“I’m cold,” is the first whine of the day, followed by a big song and dance over putting their clothes on and exposing their bare skin to the bracing air (15 degrees this morning, and that is, erm, centigrade). “Still cold,” pipes up Son 2 on the school run, despite the heater – or “heat machine” as he calls it –  being turned on in the car.

“You have no idea what cold is,” I try to explain to them (where we lived before, in Minneapolis in the Midwest of America, it’s been -45 with the windchill recently and the schools had to close for a few days).

In anticipation of the dramatic change in weather, Dubai Confidential compiled a survival guide

In anticipation of the dramatic change in weather, Dubai Confidential compiled a survival guide

I’ve tried to tell them that if we still lived there, they wouldn’t be able to leave the house without bundling up in layers of clothing, and donning fur-lined boots and bobble hats. They’d have to pick their way over ice, there would be snow-ploughs clearing the snowdrifts, and frostbite warnings.

“Honestly, it’s not that cold,” I repeat, as we put jumpers on and head out the house, unencumbered by coats and other weighty items (my sweater dating back to about 2006 as, since moving to the UAE, I’ve entered a winter fashion time warp due to only buying summer clothes).

Our Filipino nanny, too, seems to think it’s biting cold and has taken to swaddling herself in a hoody, scarf and socks round the house. I’m thinking I’d better buy her a hot-water bottle quick, or the snuggle blanket with sleeves on sale in New Look.

And spare a thought for the camels in leg warmers (joke).

I do wonder if living in a desert climate for the past five years might have thinned our blood, although to be fair, the fact that our homes have no heating, are draughty and have floors made from marble does mean you feel it when the temperature plunges from the 35 degrees or so that we’re used to.

So, there you have it: a few years of desert living and you’ll find your family becoming quite reptilian, minus the dry, scaly skin. Not only that, but you’ll also take great delight in sipping steaming hot chocolate and wearing tights (even if, by midday, it’s on the warm-side again).

Silent Sunday: Waterlogged UK

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I mentioned that the UK was wet and wild when we visited over the holidays. You’ll have heard that the country is suffering from flooding at the moment, and my parents’ garden was no exception. You can just see Santa, with his head barely above water, and the reindeer is clearly swimming for his life..

Dad's lawn turned into a lake, thanks to the river at the bottom of the garden

Dad’s lawn turned into a lake, thanks to the river at the bottom of the garden

Spit-mageddon

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Since it rains so infrequently in Dubai, it feels fitting that the events of today’s spit-mageddon are recorded on the blog. Here goes:

6.15am: Wake with an uneasy feeling. There’s a strange darkness creeping round the curtains; I peer out the window and see ominous-looking clouds.

8.15am: The children safely at school, I continue on to work. Suddenly, the sky is split in half by a bolt of lightening. Rain drops start falling.

8.15-8.18am: Spend several minutes trying to locate the windscreen wipers on the car.

9.30am: While the sky is still a pale-grey colour, and the sea looks glassy, the rain appears to have stopped.

10am: Rumours surface that the KHDA, the government body that oversees education, thinks there’s a cyclone coming, and is shutting down all schools, immediately.

10.30am: Rumours confirmed. Schools send text messages to all parents, telling us to pick up our children as soon as possible, by 11.30am at the latest in the case of Son1.

10.30-11am: The evacuation sends all the parents in the office into overdrive. Frantic phone calls are made to car pool buddies and housekeepers. “The children are coming home!”

11.10am: Mothers all over the UAE mobilise their resources and cancel their afternoon engagements. “I was planning on an 11am Ashtanga yoga class, followed by a gellish manicure and a triple berry smoothie at the Lime Tree Cafe,” I imagine inconvenienced yummy-mummies saying. “And the nanny insists on resting in the afternoon.”

11.15am: Manage to get Son1 and Son2 home from different schools, by hook or by crook, without leaving my desk.

11.20am: Yet, despite the dire weather warnings, the sky looks like this:

xxxxxx

Thanks for the photo B! Brightening up outside.

2pm: Texting DH who’s just landed in Melbourne, and three hours after the event, has received the SMS messages from school. “What’s happening?” he asks. “I can’t see anything like a cyclone on the wx map!”

3pm: Still no cyclone. Not even a downpour.

4pm: Will it, won’t it? The rain watch continues.

Rain watch at our office. Just *joking*. We were actually watching the Red Arrows aerobatic team performing loops and rolls above the Burj al-Arab

Raindrop-spotting at our office. Just *joking*. We were actually watching the Red Arrows aerobatic team performing loops and rolls above the Burj al-Arab

6pm: Drive home and hear all about how exciting it was when school closed.

Look at all this rain! Good job the kids were safe at home

Look at all this rain! Good job the kids were safe at home