We’d waited two years for this moment! Yes, it must have been late 2019 BC/early 2020 BC when it last rained in Dubai. (BC=Before Covid).
Of course, I chose the exact moment the clouds burst to venture out in the car, to take the 13-yr-old to his basketball camp. We turned onto the new tarmacked road our compound got for Christmas, and I quickly realised we were heading into a storm. The usual cerulean blue sky had turned pigeon grey. The same solemn colour I remembered from London.
My excitement grew!
A few days previously, the clouds had teased us. There had been talk of rain on the radio. I’d peered out the window. Large puffy clouds resembling cotton wool balls were floating past, but nothing like real weather. It never rained. Not properly. Bucketfuls of sand just got chucked at the car, that’s all.
But this was the real thing! The heavens, black and swollen with rain, were as squally and dull as the road. The sandy scenery on either side of the quiet desert cut-through to the highway looked moody, laden with anticipation.
Within minutes, a bolt of lightning flashed. Falling back into a childhood habit, I start counting in my head. A few raindrops splashed onto the tarmac, darkening it in small, irregular splodges, when I got to four.
“Wow!” I exclaimed, even managing to get the attention of the 13-yr-old.
The downpour, when it came, pounded wildly on the car roof. Being in DH’s car, I didn’t even know where the windscreen wipers were and flicked every lever I could find while keeping my hands firmly on the steering wheel.
“Take a photo!” I urged as we passed the Burj Khalifa. The steely tower’s tapering needlepoint top – which reaches heights no other manmade structure has ever achieved – had been swallowed by the billowing clouds. In fact, half the concrete-and-glass building had disappeared the cloud cover was so low.
Then the rainstorm got so intense, the visibility dropped to a few metres. While most cars slowed to a crawl – some putting their hazards on so you could just pick out blinking lights in the monsoon-like rainfall – others aquaplaned perilously along the wet highway at their usual high speed. Delivery drivers on bikes took shelter under the city’s bridges.
I couldn’t remember the last time Dubai saw such a big storm. With inadequate drainage, the water collected in huge lakes, forming floods the size of swimming pools.
Flashing signs above Sheikh Zayed Road warned drivers to ‘Beware of the ponds’.
Where a flooded part of the road was impossible to avoid, a bow wave formed at the front of our vehicle like we were a ship on the sea. There was a great whooshing of water and spray splashed up on both sides of the car.
Suddenly regretting my decision to leave the house, I willed it all to stop! At least until I could get home, and actually enjoy the rare event that is rain in Dubai.