Dubai: Winter is coming.
But to those who can’t wait and can’t help but complain about the heat “when it’s already October”— the cool climes is not until a couple months more, weathermen said.
The mercury peaks in the UAE in August and then gradually drops as the residents’ favourite season approaches.
“Geographically, winter in the UAE starts on December 23 every year. The temperature starts cooling gradually throughout the course of winter which is until March 22 or 23. January is the coldest month,” Mohammad Al Abri, director of Meteorology Department at the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM), told Gulf News.
Al Abri said by the end of October, the mercury will drop by about 1 degree on average every two or three days.
Based on the NCM Climate Report for the years 2003 until 2017, the minimum temperature or the coldest temperature in the coastal city of Abu Dhabi for October during the day is 24 degrees C while the average minimum temperature is 27.9 degrees C. The minimum temperature drops to 19 degrees C by October and further to 12 degrees C by December. Average minimum temperature drops to 20 degrees C by December.
The average temperature for October is 30.8 degrees C in the same area, dropping to 22.4 degrees C by December.
The coldest month, January, may see a drop in average temperature to 20.1 degrees C.
In Dubai, the minimum temperature dropped to 8.2 degrees C in December and 7.7 degrees C in January for the period of 1977 to 2017. The average temperature is 29.7 degrees C in October and 21.3 degrees C in December.
“However, there are some short temporary cold waves from time to time that causes a drop in temperature by more than five degree and then go back to the normal temperature during winter,” Al Abri explained.
In December 2016, for example, the UAE experienced a cold snap for days due to the prevailing north-westerly wind coming from colder areas such as Iraq, northern Iran and eastern Mediterranean.
The lowest temperature was recorded at Jais Mountain at 7 degrees C at around 7.30am on December 9 and three days later, this plummeted to 2.5 degrees C at 5.45am at the same place.
When these cold air masses envelope the UAE, the country’s highest peak, the Jebel Jais, may see sub-zero temperatures and, if the conditions are right, possibly a snowfall. This happened in February 2017 when Jebel Jais recorded a -0.5.5 degrees C temperatures while the rest of the country experienced 12 to 17 degrees C.
December is also the wettest month of the year with an average rainfall of 15.1mm, based on 2003 to 2017 figures from NCM.
For now at least, the temperature in Dubai will range from 24 to 39 degrees C on Wednesday, falling to 20 to 34 degrees C on Thursday. Abu Dhabi will see a drop in its maximum temperature of 38 degrees C on Tuesday to 36 degrees C on Thursday.
