Sandstorm blinds and chokes UAE bad weather to continue
(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Residents fret as visibility hits road and air traffic; bad weather to continue
A sandstorm that started on Wednesday night from Saudi Arabia raged across all areas in Saudi Arabia Kuwait Bahrain Qatar and the UAE and covered the entire region in a haze. Visibility in some areas especially in the Western parts of the UAE was down to as little as 50 metres. The storm blew from Abu Dhabi to Dubai to Sharjah and RAK. All parts of the nation were affected although to varying degrees.
According to Ahmed Habib meteorology specialist at National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) the sandstorm originated from the north of Saudi Arabia and blew across to the UAE. The low pressure combined with strong wind speeds caused maximum day temperatures to drop by 10 degrees.
From 43 degrees on Wednesday the temperature fell to about 33-34 degrees on Thursday. Declining comment on whether this was one of the more severe storms in recent years the Met department said only that it was a “strong storm” but wouldn’t say whether it was any stronger than the routine ones.
Road traffic was drastically affected and office commuters bore the brunt of it.
Irfan Ahmed a resident of Ghantoot said it took him four hours to reach Abu Dhabi because of the weather. “Normally it takes 45 minutes maximum. Today it was so bad that I had to drive very carefully and slow which took me four hours. It was really really bad today” he said.
At Abu Dhabi International Airport alone more than 15 international flights were affected. In Dubai four incoming flights were diverted to neighbouring airports. Spokespersons from the Dubai International and Al Maktoum International told Khaleej Times flights had also been delayed. According to the spokesperson “bad weather conditions across the GCC region since (Thursday) morning has affected normal operations at Dubai International and Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC)”.
People like Jamshed Ahmed residents of Abu Dhabi reportedly used handkerchiefs as face masks even inside their homes. In Sharjah the Ministry of Health distributed face masks to harried residents trying to escape the haze and the dust. Doctors are advising people to stay indoors to avoid respiratory problems.
By Thursday afternoon the storm had begun to sweep towards Oman and Yemen. Abdul Sattar Al Zadjali a resident of Seeb in Oman told Khaleej Times “It has been windy since last night but no sandstorm yet of the kind we are hearing about from neighbouring countries. We may experience a similar sandstorm here but it can’t be the worst as we’re in the mountains.”
Inclement weather conditions forced Saudi Arabia to declare a holiday on Thursday particularly for schools government and private establishments. Oman which was likely to be affected by Thursday evening declared a holiday on Friday for all sectors.
The weather in the desert was trending on social media. And residents across the UAE expressed alarm.
London-resident Bhamti Mehrotra Sood mother of a six-month-old baby girl who is visiting her parents in Dubai and is not best acquainted with sandstorms took photos on an hourly basis. “At 8.30am from the balcony in Marina you could barely tell the outline of two skyscrapers in front but at 10.30am you couldn’t see a thing! What’s going on?”
The worst hit area though it seems was Liwa where visibility was limited to one metre according to residents. Ghulam Rasool a Pakistani farmer working in Liwa said: “It was terrible here in Liwa. When I woke up this morning I found myself covered with sand. It was even worse outside. I could not see anything. I could not see the date-palms and other trees I look after.” He said he couldn’t even see the nearby sand dunes.
As an advisory to fishermen Habib of the NCMS warned that the sea was very rough and that it would continue to be so on Friday with waves said to reach up to 12 feet. Warnings were issued also along Dubai beaches and swimming was prohibited. Director of the Parks and Horticulture Department at Dubai Municipality Mohamed Abdul Rahman Al Awadi said an emergency team that works 24 hours was keeping an eye on weather-related incidents in parks and beaches. However no untoward incident was reported on Thursday and public parks in Dubai remained open during the sandstorm.
The forecast was that the sandstorm would gradually clear by the night and that there would be significantly higher visibility on Friday morning. Already by the afternoon in several parts of the UAE the storm had moved on and the haze had lifted.
—