By Steff Gaulter

It’s the last day of the month and the last day of autumn in the northern hemisphere. To those people who live in North America, who have just endured temperatures of below -30C (less than -20F) or over two metres (6.5 feet) of snow, it probably seems as if winter has already arrived! However, throughout the northern hemisphere, the evenings are continuing to draw in and the weather is turning cooler.

Although the change of seasons isn’t as drastic in Qatar, you’ve probably noticed that the evenings are getting darker here as well. The sun should set at 16:43 today, but the good news is that this is about as early as the sun will set. However, the bad news is that the mornings will continue to get darker. The shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, is December 22 in Qatar this year, and by this date, the sun won’t rise until 6:15am.

The weather has also finally broken in Doha, although it took a long time for rain to fall this year. Until the thunderstorm on November 23, the weather had been unusually bland. The only interest had been in the wind, and how strong it was and from which direction it was coming. Just two years ago, our first thunderstorm after the summer struck at the end of September, almost two whole months earlier than this year.

As someone who grew up in England, I easily bore of rain. In fact, one of the reasons that I moved to Doha was to escape the endless grey British weather. However, variety is the spice of life and I do like the occasional downpour to break the monotony of Qatar’s sunshine, especially if it’s accompanied by an impressive lightning display. I can spend hours watching a storm, transfixed, like an insect attracted to a bright light.

The chance of seeing a downpour increases significantly over the next few months. In November the average amount of rain that falls in the whole month is just 3.3mm (0.1 inches). Clearly that’s not a lot, but in December that amount rises to 12.1mm (0.5 inches). That might not sound too impressive, but if it all falls in one go, it can cause major problems.

You might remember the rain that fell in March this year. It triggered flooding around the city, which was particularly bad on Salwa Road. The rain collected in the underpasses, stranding cars and causing the road to be shut. This forced traffic onto the surrounding side roads and you can imagine the fun it was getting home that night…

Ashghal, Qatar’s public works authority, said at the time that the problem was that the drainage system hadn’t yet been completed. Apparently Salwa Road would have excellent drains with large diameter pipes, and the flood water will then flow smoothly into the sea, but this drainage system wasn’t finished. Therefore when it rained, the water flowed downhill into the underpasses and into the pipes which quickly became full and overflowed. Unfortunately it takes a long time to install a drainage network, so there’s still a risk that the underpasses could flood again this year.

Salwa Road may have seen the worst of the city’s flooding in March, but that was not the only place which became impassable. Parts of the Industrial Area, and several of the smaller roads within Doha became clogged with water, and water tankers were out in force trying to clear major roads and roundabouts.

Unfortunately, although it doesn’t rain much in Doha, when it does it often does so heavily. That’s because we often get our rain from thunderstorms, rather than the grey uniform clouds that often plague the UK. We don’t often see drizzle, but huge drops of rain, and if there are enough of them, they can deliver the entire month’s rainfall in just a few hours.

The speed that the rain falls at doesn’t help the flooding situation, and neither does the type of soil that we have in Qatar. In other countries which have regular rain, the ground is more porous and rain can easily soak into the soil. However, in Doha, the sand is baked hard by the sun, and has little vegetation, meaning it can set like cement. The last time we had significant rain in Doha was May 14, so the ground is now completely parched. This ensures the ground can only absorb water painfully slowly, and water simply sits on top of the soil for days, sometimes until it evaporates.

I always look forward to rain in Doha, and we’re likely to see some more downpours in the coming weeks. However, it’s not long until I take a holiday to the UK, and then I’ll be hoping for sunshine. I suppose this goes to show, that there’s not really a certain type of weather I enjoy, I just like variety.

 

 

 

 

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