The Rain

Those who say sunshine brings happiness have never danced in the rain

Anon

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I grew up in semi-rural South West England, so I think I’m pretty experienced in all things wet weather. I own wellie boots, waterproof coats of various lengths, silly hats and lots of umbrellas, all of which were shipped to Dubai. Last year, the children and I laughed at the panic over forecast rain and as the sky blackened, we dug out our trusty waterproofs and set off for school. Oh my goodness, there is nothing reserved and British about the rain in the UAE. It absolutely pounds down and within minutes the roads become rivers, buildings have flooded and it is nothing short of chaos. A twenty minute round trip to school and back took over an hour. School was flooded and closed.

It does seem that almost anything is possible here, including making rain! I thought that “cloud seeding” was a fabulous joke to catch out the newcomer, but it is a genuine process and fully adopted in this country. The UAE is one of the highest consumers of water in the world, most of which comes from desalination, and a tiny proportion from underground. With its hot desert climate and an average annual rainfall of less than 90 mm, clouds are seeded to encourage more rainfall. In essence, planes release flares full of salt crystals into the clouds. The salt rises on convective currents into the clouds and attracts small water particles to form together into bigger water droplets. And the rain falls.

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This year, all schools in the region were closed in anticipation of the heavy rain. A Dubai “rain day” is comparable to a British “snow day”, with the adults wondering if there was perhaps a chance that school could have stayed open and the children bubbling over with excitement. For them, there is so much innocent fun to be had on a warm wet day, scooting and cycling through deep puddles, pretending to surf on the flooded paths and dancing in their swimsuits in the rain.

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