UAE | Environment

Strong winds wreak havoc in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi

Thrashing winds battered Al Ain and its surrounding areas on Monday, uprooting plants, damaging signboards, and throwing satellite dishes and antennas from the rooftops of the buildings.

  • By Aftab Kazmi, Bureau Chief
  • Published: 23:31 March 23, 2009
  • Gulf News

  • Gusty winds blew satellite dish antennas and signboards from rooftops of buildings in Al Ain on Monday.
  • Image Credit: Aftab Kazmi/Gulf News
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Al Ain Thrashing winds battered Al Ain and its surrounding areas on Monday, uprooting plants, damaging signboards, and throwing satellite dishes and antennas from the rooftops of the buildings.

The 50km/h winds swept up dust and sand and forced residents to stay indoors. Dust in the air considerably reduced visibility and affected people with asthma and allergies.

The cloudy conditions on Sunday evening gradually turned windy at around midnight. Strong gusts continued to thrash the city all of Monday. The police and civil defence, however, did not receive any reports of related accidents or injuries.

Mushtaq Ahmad, an Oasis city resident, said: "My car was totally blanketed by sand in the morning." He said it was difficult to breathe and advised his wife, who suffers from asthma, not to go outside.

Ahmad said the wind was so strong that it had blown away his water tank and satellite dish antenna from the rooftop at around 3 am. "They landed in the nearby alley. Luckily nobody was on the street at that time," he said.

Weathermen said the winds were generated by low atmospheric pressure over south-eastern Saudi Arabia. The western region of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain were among the areas bearing the brunt of the windy conditions.

People driving on highways in the open and interior UAE areas faced visibility and steering difficulties due to the high speed dusty winds.

According to the National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS), the north-westerly winds rendered the capital with visibility of 1,000 metres at Abu Dhabi's Al Bateen Airport yesterday morning. Light rain was also reported in Khor Fakkan, which lowered temperatures by five degrees around the UAE.

Meanwhile, the unsettled weather is expected to continue until Saturday with occasional rain, thunder and sand storms, and high winds. "We expect contrasting day and night temperatures," said a weatherman at the NCMS.

Day temperatures will be hot and nights will be rather cold, he noted. Wind will be blowing at a speed of 20 to 36km/h in general but may reach a thrashing 50km/h in open areas and at sea. In the next 24 hours, he said, weather will be partly cloudy with a rise in temperature.

The World Meteorological Day

Dusty winds dominated most part of the emirates on the World Meteorological Day that was marked on Monday under the slogan of 'weather, climate and the air we breathe.'

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says an estimated two million people face premature death every year on the account of air pollution.

Mohammad Al Abri, director of the NCMS, said people must pay attention to causes of air pollution, other than the natural, since this has been a key factor in climatic changes. He said air pollutants augment the possibility of natural disasters and badly affect the food and water cycle that leads to desertification in different parts of the world.

The National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) was officially opened last year. Al Abri said the centre is fully equipped with the latest equipment to monitor the weather. This has increased the accuracy of the centre's forecasting.

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