It's Raining Mud!

We've been having quite a bit of rain lately. Well, quite a bit by Dubai standards. According to the weather service, the storm patterns off the Indian Ocean are coming in further north than they normally do - and so we're getting more rain. And it's quite nice, actually. It's been keeping the weather a bit cooler and vastly more pleasant this spring than last (can you really call it "spring" when your temps are in the 90s and near 100?) On the east coast of Dubai, it's much more common to have rain - and there are actually some cities there that are quite green and lush. But the Hajar mountains run down from north to south and usually all the rain falls before the storms can get over here to us on the west.

I heard the rain around 3am this morning as I was in bed. Usually, when it rains here, the rain lasts for about 15 - 20 minutes. Long enough for the rain to pick up all the sand and dust in the air and rain mud all over everything outside. It's not the cleansing soaking rain that we're used to in the mid-west. But today, it rained for several hours - a slow steady rain. And by the time I was up this morning there was enough wetness to actually start to feel like things were getting cleaned off a bit.

Yesterday, there was a small sand storm, so everything (EVERYTHING) was coated in a fine dusting of fine powder. So, at first, the rain was just creating little mud puddles on everything. When I got into my car and switched on the windshield wipers the sand was whipped up and smeared all over the windsheild. However, as I drove in, the rain got heavier and did a nice job of washing off the front and top of the car - the sides are still in need of some serious washing down.

When I look out over the gulf, there look to be some huge storm clouds out there. I'm not exactly sure which direction they're moving, but if it's coming this way, we're going to have a doozy of a thunderstorm today. I missed the last one when I was traveling - so it would be great to see huge booming thunder & lightning.