Tag Archives: snow

You’ve been warned – NO ice cream!

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I must stop blogging about the weather. I know.

Especially as the UK (where I’m hoping to travel to on Friday!) has been brought to a standstill this week with the arrival of an icy but pretty snowmageddon.

My Facebook page is populated by snowmen with carrot noses and stony eyes, and BBC online has kept us updated with ‘As it happened’ reports on the disruption and chaos – so, I’m well aware that here in the UAE we’re getting off, er, very lightly.

But we’re actually experiencing something of a ‘cold snap’ ourselves.

Really. We are. The mercury has dropped to morning lows of 9 to 10°C, and with hard, marble floors, flimsy summer duvets and no heating, it actually feels really chilly.

Pounding the school run in Dubai this week (boot envy, moi?)

Pounding the school run this week (boot envy, moi?)

This happens every year at about this time (see, as proof, last year’s blog post on the desert freezing over), but we tend to forget about it as it doesn’t last very long – say, a couple of weeks – and when it leaps back to 40°C the cooler temps are hard to imagine.

The best thing is being able to wear different clothes – with a sleeve, even Ugg boots and a scarf if you can find these items in the depths of your closet. My mind starts tripping with wardrobe opportunities – until I remember all my winter clothes are from 2005.

I love this weather, I really do; it’s such a breath of fresh air, but the funny thing is how seriously folks in Dubai with outdoor jobs take it – donning several layers, bobble hats, big, thick coats and sometimes ear muffs (no kidding!) like they’re Arctic explorers.

My top prize, though, goes to gulfnews.com for this hilarious news piece, written by the bureau chief in all seriousness and entitled ‘People shiver in the bitterly cold nights’.

After reporting that the temperature had dropped to a biting 2°C in inland desert areas, the article warns people to wear warm clothes, not to stay in desert camps or open places overnight, and – it gets better – to have hot drinks and avoid ice cream as a precaution against colds and flu.

As a former resident of Minneapolis in the Midwest of America, where we survived temperatures that, with the wind chill, dipped to minus 42°C – and where you could get frostbite on your ear lobes in five minutes – I wore my gym shorts on the school run this morning without fear.

xxxxx

Snow, snow, go away – by Friday. I am (fingers crossed) London bound!

Silent Sunday: Boys’ toys

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Yes, that's snow, not sand - and that is my 6yo about to go skidding up a mountain on a snowmobile in Lebanon this weekend! The antithesis of many people's image of the Middle East, laid-back Lebanon is mostly mountainous with ski resorts to boot

When the desert freezes over

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In Dubai right now, the conversation on everyone’s (blue-tinged) lips is the same: the cold windy weather that’s whipping up dust storms galore.

It’s all relative, of course (in the UK, 17 degrees might be considered a chilly summer’s day), but the cool temperatures that are currently hitting our normally balmy city are having a far-reaching effect.

Spotted around the UAE today:

– Mums in winter clothes bought in 1992 (and a man wearing a shawl at the supermarket)

– Security men kitted out with ear muffs

– Nannies (the brave ones) sporting hoodies and hopping from foot to foot at the playarea while watching fleeced-up kids

– School guards swaddled in layers and resembling Arctic explorers

– Tourists fiddling with the air-conditioning units in their hotel rooms to see if they double up as heaters

– Those same visitors then heading to Starbucks for a hot chocolate, rueing the week they chose for a winter-sun holiday

– Cricketers, here for the England vs Pakistan Test match, wondering if they’re playing in, um, England

– Cats sniffing the air outside, turning their noses up and heading straight back indoors

– Business men grappling with their appendages – steady on – their ties, I mean, flapping in the wind at right angles

– Camels wearing leg warmers (joke!)

Given that Dubai plays host to more nationalities than the Olympics, there are two camps among residents: the ‘C’mon get over it! Just man-up…this is not cold” brigade and the “Brrrrr, it’s absolutely freezing’ camp.

You might think we’re all wimps but, believe it or not, the temperature in the UAE’s mountainous regions was set to dip to an almost freezing 1°C today, according to the forecast – and, even more surprisingly, did you know it can even snow in the desert?

Almost three years ago to the day, on the night of January 24-25th 2009, twenty centimetres of snow covered the peak of Mount Jebel Jais in Ras al-Khaimah, one of the UAE’s emirates.

Dubai, meanwhile, is abuzz with ‘will-it, won’t-it’ actually rain? There’s been a few drops already – more like a dog shaking off water than a downpour – but the consensus is it’s going to rain on Monday, meaning the highways will be aglow with hazard lights and cars stopped on the side of the road not knowing what to do.

Puddle-loving kids will be in their element, my own included. Some real puddles to jump in are such a novelty after months of running through the garden sprinklers pretending it’s raining (for the sweetest account of how exciting rain is for kids here, pop over to Mrs Dubai – you’ll love it, I promise, especially if you have little-uns).

As for which cold-weather camp I fall in – well, I’m absolutely loving the climate change, but, yes, I’m feeling it. Dubai’s hot weather thins your blood, you know.

PHOTO CREDIT: Emirates 24/7 News

Home for a refill and a blast of winter

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I love London, and each time I visit I’m reminded how much I enjoy being holed up in a cosy pub, drinking wine with my oldest friends – laughing till our sides ache, reminiscing, and marvelling at how much time has passed since we were at Uni together.

Nearly two decades have flashed by! How did that happen?

Our graduation ceremonies feel so recent, mine etched on my mind forever because I spied a fellow student’s grannie stuffing silverware into her handbag when she thought no one was looking.

The UK is actually having a mild winter this year, but it still feels cold when you only have summer clothes

These past few days, I’ve also enjoyed every minute of catching up with my family – loved ones I don’t see enough of due to living in the Middle East.

Everyone has said the same thing, though: “What are you doing here? Has something happened?”

They’re asking this because, since moving to Dubai four years ago, I’ve timed all my visits to the Northern hemisphere to coincide with warmer temperatures and long days.

This time, it’s winter – there’s a cold, howling wind that whips right through you, the tree branches are bare and the pale winter sun gives way to an eerie twilight at about 3.50pm.

I know my friends and family are struggling with blustery days, during which they go to work and return home in the dark like badgers, but, for me, the blast of winter is a wonderful novelty – a chance to drink warming hot chocolate by the radiator, to snuggle under the duvet with the iPad – and wear the Uggs.

I’m no stranger to winter. When we lived in the States – in Minneapolis, a city I adored in spring, summer and fall, the temperature could plummet to minus 25, so cold it hurt. During these sub-zero spells, if you threw a cup of boiling water into the air, it would freeze by the time it hit the ground.

Minneapolis in North America: Moving to Dubai was like jumping out of the freezer into the frying pan

Yet, at the same time, it was like living in a magical, winter wonderland. Fresh, fluffy snow would burst through the clouds, the flakes lightly touching your face, attaching to your lashes and tickling your nose. The sky, I remember, was nearly always blue, and the frozen lakes dotted with ice fishing huts and the odd car.


A British winter is, of course, far more dreary and overcast, but when you’ve escaped it for eight years running, it doesn’t seem gloomy. On the contrary, I’ve been revelling in the cosiness and loving the winter fashions being paraded everywhere I go. The scarves, hats, boots and coats – floor-length maxi-coats, double-breasted wool coats and fur-lined jackets in trendy winter colours like mustard and aubergine.

I’ve practically had to stop myself coo-ing at coats out loud or, worse, running up to people in the street to snatch the coat off their back.

Believe me, winter can be utterly fabulous, especially when you’ve just arrived from the desert and it’s only four days long.

Oh the coats - I love the coats. You would too if you never had to wear one