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Chaos in Dubai as UAE records heaviest rainfall in 75 years

Chaos ensued in the United Arab Emirates after the country witnessed the heaviest rainfall in 75 years, with some areas recording more than 250 mm of precipitation in fewer than 24 hours, the state’s media office said in a statement Wednesday.

The rainfall, which flooded streets, uprooted palm trees and shattered building facades, has never been seen in the Middle Eastern nation since records began in 1949. In the popular tourist destination Dubai, flights were canceled, traffic came to a halt and schools closed.

One-hundred millimeters (nearly 4 inches) of rain fell over the course of just 12 hours on Tuesday, according to weather observations at the airport – around what Dubai usually records in an entire year, according to United Nations data.

The rain fell so heavily and so quickly that some motorists were forced to abandon their vehicles as the floodwater rose and roads turned into rivers.

TheEighthDoctor ,

They messed up the cloud seeding dosage again

wren ,
@wren@feddit.uk avatar

There is no technology on earth that can make storms of this scale. Cloud seeding doesn’t add any water to the cloud. At most, it causes a very slight increase in rain. If you accidentally cloud seed “too much” you nucleate lots of ice crystals within the cloud, making many tiny ice crystals (which don’t precipitate at all).

They didn’t seed this cloud - but it wouldn’t have done anything if they had.

SpacetimeMachine ,

I think it’s more accurate to say the only technology that could cause a storm like this is all of the technology together. As our technology is certainly making storms worsen, just not intentionally.

wren ,
@wren@feddit.uk avatar

If you mean climate change, then yeah, obviously humans do influence the climate. In terms of individual scale events (weather, big storms) there’s not any existing technology that exists that can cause a single targeted big storm event.

force ,

Uncommon global warming W?

HeyMrDeadMan ,

4 inches in 12 hours

laughs in Florida

Universal ,

Also, that’s what she said!

andrew_bidlaw ,

The funny thing is - the state official that is responsible for a current flooding in Russia just ran to Dubai. Where should he go next? He need to hurry until the curse wears off.

NataliePortland ,
@NataliePortland@lemmy.ca avatar

So that’s where our PNW rain went

Rapidcreek ,

I looked at the vids of the airport in Dubai yesterday, and it was quite a show. What occurred to me is that they hadn’t engineered for water runoff because it would rarely be needed. Sandy ground would soak up that stuff, but pave the same area and you have standing water without runoff.

mipadaitu ,

Talked to a civil engineer a while back, and some of the ways they have to mitigate sand is the opposite of how they mitigate water. Makes it difficult to handle both situations with one solution.

Rapidcreek ,

That actually makes sense. During my teenage years surveying for the highway department, we used to have to take ground samples. I guess it was not in vain.

DarkThoughts ,

Sandy ground would soak up that stuff

This is kind of a myth, maybe if we think of loose sand like the Sahara, but dry ground acts very similar to paved ground. That's why the mixture of long droughts and heavy rainfall are so devastating. The rain just washes over the dried hardened ground and causes flooding instead of getting soaked up and filling the ground water reserves.

Rapidcreek ,

Dubai is bordered by the Arabian Desert

DarkThoughts ,

Yeah, but it isn't getting swallowed by dunes.

Rapidcreek ,

If you’ve ever been to that part of the world, it pretty much is.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

The only good thing about climate change is that nations like the UAE that essentially only exist because of their oil are reaping some of what they have sown.

Rapidcreek ,

That’s like someone with drug addiction blaming his pusher.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

No, it’s more like someone with a drug addiction blaming Purdue Pharma.

Rapidcreek ,

To the addic it’s always someone else’s fault.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

So you’re saying that Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers are being wrongly accused of getting millions of people addicted to opioids who wouldn’t have been without Purdue Pharma specifically pushing it onto them through doctors? ’

Rapidcreek ,

No I didn’t say that and you know I didnt, but argue you must.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Sure looks like you suggested as much to me:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/d436006b-5ddf-483c-9d48-7f54793292c3.png

If not, then why did you say “to the addict, it’s always someone else’s fault” after I brought up blaming Purdue Pharma for addiction? And if you wish to remain here, I would advise you not making personal attacks like claiming I have some need to argue with you (especially when you responded to me). I do not moderate discussions I am personally involved in, but I cannot speak for other moderators who see such things.

Rapidcreek ,

Forget it, I’m not interested in another person in my life that lives to argue…

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Again, you responded to me unprompted.

Don’t start arguing with someone and then claim they’re the one that lives to argue. Look in a mirror.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

Western civilization only exists because of oil.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Oh good, well we better keep pumping it out of the ground then. It’s not like that could spell the end of Western civilization or anything.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

What I meant is that your schadenfreude is misplaced. Since there is oil in UAE it would be exploited wheter people living there wanted or not. And, well, it will keep being exploited until civilization falls, that’s the nature of the economic system we are all cursed to live under.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Oh that’s right, there are no alternatives to fossil fuels and there never were. My mistake.

tsonfeir ,
@tsonfeir@lemm.ee avatar

They just want to complain about “western civilization” while also living in it.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

Well good luck convincing Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell et al and all the politicians they bought in the whole world to grow a conscience. Ain’t gonna happen.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

What does that have to do with your implying that there were and never will be an alternative to fossil fuels?

Those alternatives exist right now.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

What does that have to do with your implying that there were and never will be an alternative to fossil fuels?

I did not imply that at any moment. If you take your time re-reading our argument you’ll see that. What I’ve argued is that oil is a substantial backbone of current western civilization, and since oil exists in the UAE it would be exploited wether people living there wanted that or not (and that has been the case for decades).

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

What I meant is that your schadenfreude is misplaced. Since there is oil in UAE it would be exploited wheter people living there wanted or not. And, well, it will keep being exploited until civilization falls, that’s the nature of the economic system we are all cursed to live under.

You are arguing that oil is necessarily a substantial backbone of Western civilization by claiming that it would have been extracted from the area no matter what and will continue to be so in perpetuity. Neither of those things are facts. They are pure guesswork on your part.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

You are arguing that oil is necessarily a substantial backbone of Western civilization by claiming that it would have been extracted from the area no matter what and will continue to be so in perpetuity. Neither of those things are facts. They are pure guesswork on your part.

No, I’m arguing that oil is currently a substantial backbone of Western civilization. And yes, it would have been extracted from the area no matter what, because if people native to the region refused, some imperalist country would simply bomb those natives or replace their leaders with ones more pliabe to said imperalist demands. It won’t of course go on forever because petroleum is a finite resource and when it runs out the UAE will become a unwanted desert wasteland ignored by all except for those still living there.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Again, this is what you said:

And, well, it will keep being exploited until civilization falls,

That is not about the current situation, is it?

And oil is only discovered where people explore for it. You cannot guarantee people would have explored for it there.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

And, well, it will keep being exploited until civilization falls,

That is not about the current situation, is it?

Do you seriously believe that there will be any different outcome while we are all still living under capitalism?

You cannot guarantee people would have explored for it there.

Again, under capitalism, it makes absolutely no sense not exploiting a natural resource you spent money prospecting for.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Do you seriously believe that there will be any different outcome while we are all still living under capitalism?

I do not claim to predict the future.

Again, under capitalism, it makes absolutely no sense not exploiting a natural resource you spent money prospecting for.

And again, there is no guarantee that was where prospecting would have happened. You are assuming it necessarily would have happened there. There is no reason to make such an assumption.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

Sorry, but right now you’re just grasping at straws. But if you have to win the argument no matter what, go ahead and claim to have bested/disproved/refuted me, I don’t want to argue this further. Have a nice day.

saltesc ,

Uuuuuh…

I think western civilization and its dominamce may have existed for a little while before crude oil.

Western civilization only exists because of oil flags, psychopathy, and exploitation of anything and anyone it can.

demonsword ,
@demonsword@lemmy.world avatar

Modern western lifestyle only exists because of oil…

13esq ,

If you were otherwise dirt poor and you had the opportunity to become rich beyond your dreams selling something that to you is essentially free you wouldn’t do it?

It’s really easy to be moral from your armchair at home.

I’m not saying that makes it OK, but it’s a real moral dilemma and we live in the real world. The UAE not selling oil wouldn’t lower the demand for it, they’d still have been flooded, just with no oil money to help fix anything afterwards.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

What makes you think the Sheikhs were dirt poor before the British started pumping oil?

13esq ,

I’m obviously talking about the wealth of the whole country, not just it’s richest citizens.

In 2009, the UAEs GDP was 85% based on oil, it doesn’t take a triple digit IQ to do the maths here.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You’re being disingenuous. People aren’t talking about the poor living in a slum in Tel Aviv when they talk about how Israel needs to pay for its crimes.

13esq ,

Absolutely pointless reply.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

You’re suggesting that my happy that the UAE is getting some karma for helping destroy the planet is somehow ignoring the fact that there were a lot of poor people that have better lives now because the UAE has been helping destroy the planet.

I’m pointing out that I’m not talking about the poor people.

13esq ,

It’s literally only the poor people that will suffer. Do you think any of the oil billionaires in the UAE are going to be finding it hard to sleep tonight?

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I’m sure people made the same argument during the bombings of Berlin in the 1940s. The elite were safe in their bunkers or in the countryside.

force ,

Dubai’s poverty rate is 20% and a notable fraction of the population (1.5%) is slaves from central/south Asia who got their passports taken away from them, and median salary is USD$4300 (a single person’s monthly expenses are estimated to average USD$1000 excluding rent). I can’t call them a wealthy country when their citizens are far from it.

13esq ,

20% of the UK live in poverty.

11% of US citizens live in poverty

You can call them not rich if you want but that doesn’t change the facts that they’d be so much poorer without oil money

kozy138 ,

If they didn’t sell oil, there wouldn’t be a giant, pseudo-city in the desert. Those people would probably build elsewhere, if at all.

13esq ,

Exactly my point.

bitwaba ,

Well if climate change keeps up, it sounds like they’ll be a pseudo-city on the rain forest instead.

macrocephalic ,

Agreed. I dislike these countries because of who they are, not how they got rich.

Squizzy ,

Not like there is unsavoury alliances ad tendencies associated with this story. It is not just them making money.

nonailsleft ,

Don’t forget ‘offering a tax haven to drug- and other money’

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Chaos ensued in the United Arab Emirates after the country witnessed the heaviest rainfall in 75 years, with some areas recording more than 250 mm of precipitation in fewer than 24 hours, the state’s media office said in a statement Wednesday.

One-hundred millimeters (nearly 4 inches) of rain fell over the course of just 12 hours on Tuesday, according to weather observations at the airport – around what Dubai usually records in an entire year, according to United Nations data.

Disruption to airport operations continued into Wednesday, after the storm had cleared, with access roads blocked by flooding and multiple airlines including flag carrier Emirates reporting flight delays.

Emirates suspended check-in for passengers departing Dubai from 8 a.m. local time on Wednesday until midnight on Thursday due to “operational challengers caused by bad weather and road conditions.”

In the Dubai Marina, a manmade canal lined with skyscrapers and retail outlets, furniture from nearby restaurants could be seen washed away by strong currents.

Delivery services stopped functioning and many Dubai residents were unable to leave their homes due to waterlogged streets, which cars and pedestrians couldn’t access.

The original article contains 812 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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