MASAFI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Outside of a mountain village in the northern outskirts of the United Arab Emirates, clouds on a recent weekend suddenly crowded out the white-hot sun that bakes this desert nation in the summer months. Fierce winds blew over planters and pushed a dumpster down the street. And then came the most infrequent visitor of all: rain.
Rainfall long has fascinated the people of the Emirates. That includes both its white-thobed locals crowding into the deserts for any downpour and its vast population of foreign workers, many coming from homes in the Indian subcontinent who grew up with monsoon deluges.
But rain also carries with it promise and peril to the nation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.
With some 4 million people now estimated to be living in Dubai alone compared to around 255,000 in 1980, pressure on water consumption continues. Meanwhile, as weather patterns change with global warming, the country saw the heaviest recorded rainfall ever last year that disrupted worldwide travel and now has its leaders reconsidering how to build as residents nervously look to the skies.
“Out here, rain is almost like a firework event,” said Howard Townsend, an unofficial weather forecaster in Dubai with a Facebook following. “It’s too hot to go outside. When you get a rain event, it’s like a blessing, a release.”
The UAE, home to an estimated 10 million people in total, sits along both the Persian Gulf to its north and west and the Gulf of Oman to the east. The stone Hajar Mountains separate it from neighboring Oman. Along the southern borders of the peninsula, monsoon rains can hit seaside areas of Oman and Yemen. But the vast desert stretch of the peninsula, known as the Empty Quarter, has a weather pattern that keeps the clouds out.
That means little to no rain, sometimes for years at a time in some areas. For the Emirates, that has meant relying heavily on some 70 water desalination plants to supply drinking water, as well as drip irrigation for plants that can rely on recycled wastewater. Dams have also been built in recent years to catch and store water runoff.