The storm had the most rain ever recorded in the United Arab Emirates

An IRAS incident at Dubai International Airport: Condolences from the nation’s National Coordination for Emergency Management (NCEM)

According to a statement from the country’s National Committee for Emergency Management, at least 18 people have died in heavy rains in a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula. The tragic incident in which 10 children were swept away in a vehicle with an adult, brought in condolences from rulers from across the region.

According to the meteorological data collected at Dubai International Airport, the rains started late Monday and soaked the sands and roadway of the city with 20 millimeters of rain. The storms intensified and continued throughout the day dumping more rain and hail onto the overwhelmed city.

At the airport, standing water lapped on taxiways as aircraft landed. The airport halted arrivals Tuesday and passengers had a hard time reaching the terminals due to the floodwater.

A couple who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, called the situation at the airport “absolute carnage” because of the strict laws that criminalize critical speech.

They got a cab to go to their home, but the road was flooding and it took them 30 kilometers (18 miles) away. A bystander helped them over a highway barrier with their carry-on luggage, the bottles of gin they picked up from duty free clinking away.

The flooding at the airport left “limited transportation options” and caused flights to be diverted as crews could not reach the airfield.

The airport wrote on the social platform X that recovery will take some time.

What cloud seeding didn’t do during the 1948 Dubai floods? The legacy of a historic weather event for the United Arab Beverages

Police and emergency personnel drove slowly through the flooded streets of Dubai. Lightning flashed Tuesday across the sky, occasionally touching the tip of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. The city’s Metro experienced disruptions and flooding.

Government employees in the United Arab Beverages largely worked from home if possible after schools across the federation were closed due to the storm. Many workers stayed home as well, though some ventured out, with the unfortunate stalling out their vehicles in deeper-than-expected water covering some roads.

Authorities sent tanker trucks out into the streets and highways to pump away the water. People were forced to bail out their houses after water poured into them.

The hereditary rulers of the country did not provide any damage or injury information for the nation as some slept into their vehicles Tuesday night. Police in the northernmost of the country said that a man died when his vehicle was swept away by flood water.

The state-run WAM news agency called the rain “a historic weather event” that surpassed “anything documented since the start of data collection in 1949.” That’s before the discovery of crude oil in this energy-rich nation then part of a British protectorate known as the Trucial States.

seeding operations tend to take place in the east of the country, far away from more populated areas. This is largely because of restrictions on air traffic, but means that it was unlikely that any seeding particles were still active by the time the storms reached Dubai. Most of the scientists I’ve spoken to say the impact of cloud seeding has a very small, localized effect and is unlikely to cause flooding in other areas. But perhaps the best evidence that cloud seeding wasn’t involved in these floods is the fact that it rained all over the region. Even though it did not do any cloud seeding, it was still badly affected by flooding with many casualties.

There are a few reasons for this. The most optimistic assessments of cloud seeding claim that it can increase precipitation by 25 percent annually. If cloud seeding had an impact, it would increase the amount of precipitation that fell, but it would only have been a slight increase. The jury is still out on the effectiveness of cloud seeding in warm climates, and even if it does work, cloud seeding can’t produce rain out of thin air, it can only enhance what’s already in the sky.