It's not often that my desktop weather gidget (gadget + widget) looks like this:
That's right! It's raining! Water droplets falling from clouds (they are pretty dusty droplets but let's not quibble over details)!
Last Monday as I went out with the dogs for their 4am walk, I looked to the west and saw huge streaks of vertical lightening. The rumble of the thunder was just at the limit of my hearing (but Mimi sure could hear it and was not happy about it). The system was many tens of kilometers away and I thought no more about it.
The weather patterns here are interesting in part because there are no permanent lakes or rivers that can provide moisture to storm systems and generally speaking, the Arabian Plate doesn't have a lot of topography which exerts a strong influence on the formation and movement of storm systems. Storm systems thus tend to be localized over relatively small areas. Rainfall can be violent but is usually brief. Even the presence of clouds is a bit unusual because it is normally too dry for clouds to stay around for long. So I saw the clouds to the west and thought, it might rain out there today but we probably won't see anything here.
It turns out that the weather system was larger than I realized. It passed through Dhahran later that afternoon as a dust front and was followed by three days of the most gloriously clear and cold weather. Sweatshirts! Long pants! Throw open the windows and let the hovel air out! It gets that cool for only a few weeks out of the year, usually in January, which is also the time it typically rains, so this weather was a welcome surprise.
I could tell last night that it was warming up again--back to shorts and Tshirts when walking the dogs (in contrast to some Brits and most of the Saudis and Asians who bundle up like they have to face Arctic conditions whenever the temps are below 70F). So I was pleasantly surprised to see more clouds this morning right overhead.
The rain started as I was driving to work--and five hours later it is still raining! You could almost convince yourself that winter is just around the corner.
That's right! It's raining! Water droplets falling from clouds (they are pretty dusty droplets but let's not quibble over details)!
Last Monday as I went out with the dogs for their 4am walk, I looked to the west and saw huge streaks of vertical lightening. The rumble of the thunder was just at the limit of my hearing (but Mimi sure could hear it and was not happy about it). The system was many tens of kilometers away and I thought no more about it.
The weather patterns here are interesting in part because there are no permanent lakes or rivers that can provide moisture to storm systems and generally speaking, the Arabian Plate doesn't have a lot of topography which exerts a strong influence on the formation and movement of storm systems. Storm systems thus tend to be localized over relatively small areas. Rainfall can be violent but is usually brief. Even the presence of clouds is a bit unusual because it is normally too dry for clouds to stay around for long. So I saw the clouds to the west and thought, it might rain out there today but we probably won't see anything here.
It turns out that the weather system was larger than I realized. It passed through Dhahran later that afternoon as a dust front and was followed by three days of the most gloriously clear and cold weather. Sweatshirts! Long pants! Throw open the windows and let the hovel air out! It gets that cool for only a few weeks out of the year, usually in January, which is also the time it typically rains, so this weather was a welcome surprise.
I could tell last night that it was warming up again--back to shorts and Tshirts when walking the dogs (in contrast to some Brits and most of the Saudis and Asians who bundle up like they have to face Arctic conditions whenever the temps are below 70F). So I was pleasantly surprised to see more clouds this morning right overhead.
The rain started as I was driving to work--and five hours later it is still raining! You could almost convince yourself that winter is just around the corner.
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