If you live in Dubai, were you woken up to the sound of your phone blaring out like a police siren last Monday morning?

If, like me, this roused you from a deep slumber, did you have absolutely no idea what was going on? Were we at war? Had Iran launched a nuke?

All these thoughts ran through my head, my pulse rising, before the voice of reason chimed in – it’s surely just my alarm sounding extra … erm … extra alarming.

As it turned out, none of the above applied. It was the Dubai Police issuing a public safety alert – a loud warning tone designed to forewarn residents and visitors in the UAE about an imminent emergency.

My phone was also vibrating on my bedside table like a maniacal insect.

I picked it up in the half-dark, almost dropping it, and looked at the screen.

There was a message written in Arabic and English.

“The city of Dubai is exposed to fluctuations in weather conditions,” it read. In other words, rain in the UAE.

Members of the public were advised to “stay away from beaches, avoid areas of valleys, torrent flows, and low places.”

Putting all notions of trying to get back to sleep aside as my heart rate subsided, I got up and carried on with my day – working at home as the government had advised due to the wet weather. The schools that weren’t on half-term break proceeded with online learning.

Some people got the National Early Warning System alert up to four times.

There was indeed heavy rain, thunder and lightning across parts of the UAE, and I was glad to be able to stay home (rain in the UAE is like a snow day in the UK), but it’s funny how a downpour in this country can be so wild – and gets treated like a cyclone, even though it isn’t.