By Steff Gaulter
Welcome to 2015!
This is my ninth year in Doha, which isn’t bad considering initially, I came to Doha for two years. If you’ve just arrived in Doha, you may well be gasping at the thought of quite so many years in here, but be careful, this place has a way of getting under your skin. A large number of people you meet here seem to have planned to stay for just a couple of years, but ended up staying longer; and quite a few people who leave Doha, end up returning here again in a few years’ time.
I put my extended time in Qatar down to a combination of the people here and the weather. After spending Christmas in the UK, my Argentinian husband turned to me and said, “Now I see why British people are all obsessed with sunshine.”
I wouldn’t have cared, but it had actually been relatively sunny over the previous days! I suppose he was also referring to the fact that the sun never rises particularly high in the sky and sets around 4pm.
As well as being promised almost endless sunshine in Qatar, there’s also the mild winter weather. Over the Christmas period in the UK, there were days when the temperature didn’t manage to struggle over freezing, but in Doha, the temperature doesn’t get that low, even at the coldest time of the year.
January is usually the coldest month of the year, but the temperature in Doha’s daytime still usually climbs to 22°C (72°F), with a minimum of 13°C (55°F). However, that’s only the average and most years have days when the temperature fails to get close to this. In a country which builds homes to release heat rather than retain it, even temperatures that don’t sound very low can feel surprisingly cool.
Exactly how cool the weather is in Doha depends on the wind direction; if there is a strong wind from the northwest, expect things to feel rather cold. Places to the north of us are generally a fair amount cooler than Doha, for example, the average daytime temperature in Baghdad in December is 17°C (63°F) and the average night-time minimum is 5°C (41°F); in Kuwait, the average high temperature is 22°C (72°F) like in Doha, but the low temperature is 10°C (50°F).
The difference is because the air over Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is generally quite dry, which means that at night it cools down more quickly than it might if the air were humid.
If the winds over Qatar are blowing from the northwest, then the cold, dry air from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia heads towards us. Fortunately, however, it changes before it reaches our shores. The mild waters of the Gulf warm up the air and add moisture to it, making it milder and less dry by the time it reaches our shores. This is a blessing in a country which isn’t well equipped to deal with cold weather.
Over the past few years, temperatures in Doha haven’t dropped below 12°C (54°F) at night, but in 2012 a strong blast of cold air ensured the temperature dropped to 9°C (48°F). Outside the city, the temperatures dropped even further, with Al Udeid recording a temperature as low as 4°C (39°F), which is properly cold. However, to the north of us, it was even colder. The same cold blast brought the temperature in Kuwait and Riyadh tumbling to -1°C (30°F), and in Baghdad, the temperature dropped even lower, reaching -4°C (25°F).
You’ll probably be relieved to hear that in the decades we’ve been recording weather in Doha, the temperatures have never dropped below freezing. The lowest temperature recorded in the capital was 3.6°C (38°F), recorded back in 1964. However, this was clearly a bit of an anomaly and it normally doesn’t get anywhere near this cold.
In fact most people who live in apartments don’t usually need heaters in Doha, it’s just people who live in villas who find it a bit cooler, as the houses are generally bigger with higher ceilings, making them harder to keep warm. If you live in a villa and haven’t got a heater, you better consider getting a blanket to hide under whilst you’re watching the TV, or you may well find yourself fighting with your husband over who the cat sits on.
However the temperatures fare over the next few weeks, remember that the cool weather in Doha is usually short-lived. By the second half of February, it will be feeling much warmer. However, it won’t necessarily be entirely sunny.
February is statistically the wettest month of the year, and rain can make an appearance later in the year than most people realise. There are usually even a few days of rain in April, when the weather is changing from its winter set-up to its summer regime. This rain can sometimes spill over into May, but as soon as it stops the heat starts in earnest.
Between May and mid-July, the weather is extremely hot, but dry. This is unpleasant, but generally dry heat is easier to cope with than the humid heat, which kicks in during the middle of July. This ensures that the most difficult time of the year is between mid-July and mid-September, and after that the weather will gradually begin to cool down again.
So, if you’re new to Doha, wishing it wasn’t so cold, be careful what you wish for! The cool weather won’t last long and by the end of May, you will probably be missing the arguments over the cat.