Heavy rainfall with thunderstorms inundated Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, with an incredible rainfall of 111mm. This compares nicely with an annual average of around 50mm. Tons of traffic problems with trapped cars and people. The city’s infrastructure and geography might be blamed, but 111mm of rain is quite high.
10 people have been confirmed dead.
Click here for a video of the rain in Jeddah on Jan 26, 2011.
hi there, i am a big fan of this website.
we are having a strange weather pattern in jeddah this winter! ” its raining almost every 10 days ”
i have some pictures to share of todays storm…
thanks and regard,
Roman Altayyar
Hi Roman,
Yes this winter in Jeddah is different. It rains frequently and it is strangely cooler in some days. One thing to blame is the path of low pressure systems in this winter and the abundance of atmospheric energy for thunderstorms around jeddah.
I can post your photos of Jeddah storm on my site. Just send them.
[...] In reviewing this list, an interesting story from a weather blog out of the United Arab Emirates. It seems that Jeddah in Saudi Arabia picked up 111 mm (4.37 inches) of rain in 3 hours from a big thunderstorm. This is more than double their average annual rainfall of 50 mm (1.97 inches). The heavy rains caused tremendous flooding. See the whole story here. [...]
Why is middle east getting wet year by year???
It is hard to generalize. Other places in the Middle East are experiencing drought conditions with below average rainfall. What has been happening is that we had several weather events during which heavy rainfall hit a specific area. Of course, if that area is not accustomed to heavy rain, problems occur.
Heavy rains accompanied by hailstones and strong winds lashed several parts of the UAE
Well…No one can do anything if the rain is double the annual average. Of course it has to be more managed. If something like this happens in Hajj season, you can imagine the plight.
Yes indeed. Yet Makkah seems to be better prepared for rain.
I have experienced a heavy rain almost a flood in Jeddah on 26 January 2011 during school hours. Such a change in climate I have not thought about it. I hope I have to see many other changes in future.
Salaamz..i need some honest opinion.
I am from Bahrain..though not Bahraini…,
My parents are planning to perform Umra this month that is as soon as visas open for Rabiul Awwal…it will probabaly be and airtravel…but the planes either go from Makkah to Jeddah to Bahrain…Or Madinah to Jeddah then Bahrain.
Pls I need any one living in Jeddah..can pls advise can we take the route from Madina and Makkah via Jeddah and then Bahrain..like the route to the airport from these two holy cities…..Ppl have said the flood is really bad..with ppl stuck for hours in cars..Jst need any one’s honest opinion soon..on the situation explaining is it that bad…Do my ppl have to forget pilgrimage for the mean time…
Thank you.
See the interaction of the atmospheric dust and the rain. When the dust goes away, the rains can come, like in 2010 – January 18-21 = Eastern Egypt, worst flood in a decade, sweeping away 700 homes and uprooted 27,000 trees in orchards. May 3-6 = Riyadh KSA and Yemen floods. June 4 = Oman (Tropical cyclone Phet) major flooding, 11.8″ of rainfall and 125 mph (200 Km/hr) winds. July 13 = KSA torrential rain. July 10-15 = Yemen and KSA Jeddah flash floods. July 23-25 = KSA flash floods. July 15-August 30 = Pakistan floods, 10 inches rain in 24 hours in places, 2 million homes destroyed, submerged 17 million acres farmland (Wikipedia).
Yes dry air entrainment from dust weakens cyclones. But for other events that you mentioned, I’m not sure how much dust was there.
Thank you for your reply. What I am suggesting is with global warming, that extra amount of atmospheric moisture is overcoming the atmospheric dust that has acted as a barrier and kept those torrential rains away from Arabia for 5,500 years. Plus, just last month a new cyclone belt formed off Brazil, aimed straight for Arabia right now. To see the dust/cyclone interaction for GONU see and for the Pakistan floods see When the dust goes away, and the barometer drops below 29.85 inches, there is a good chance now of torrential rains and floods on the Arabian peninsula.
Tropical cyclone GONU is at http://www.ecoseeds.com/GONU.html and the Pakistan floods are at http://www.ecoseeds.com/floods.html. Since I cannot figure out how to make these URLs into links from this comment page, please cut and paste these URLs into your browser to view them.
Yes, the link from this comment page is made when you type in the URL starting with www. then the link is made for you.
To see the new tropical cyclone belt that formed this year, going from Brazil to Arabia, a vapor image from April 9 is at http://www.ecoseeds.com/vapor_4-9-2011.gif
Hi Craig,
You introduce a very interesting piece of information. Regarding the connection between dust and rainfall, it is more intuitive to me to think that “surface” dust reduces as a result of rain falling. I don’t think that if surface dust suddenly goes away it would immediately rain. The process of rain formation has its own causes. However, dust and dryness in mid and upper air levels do impact rainfall negatively, in the sense that they weaken cyclones and clouds, a process known as dry air entrainment.
As for the cyclone belt you mentioned, since you picked a water vapor image it seems it is mainly mid/upper-air moisture belt of clouds. My feeling by looking at 300mb and 500mb winds is that there were 2 belts of clouds, one is a high-level non-rainy clouds from equatorial Africa to Arabia, and the other is mid and upper-level clouds from Brazil to equatorial Africa due to convective rainfall. It is hard to assume that an organized weather system will stretch from southern to northern hemisphere as cyclonic winds reverse to anti-cyclonic, and that explains why cyclones don’t cross the equator. And when it coms to rainfall over Arabia, low and mid level moisture are more important than upper level moisture or clouds, and rainfall depends largely on upper-air pressures as well. And one more thing, it is not reasonable to call it a cyclonic belt as cyclones don’t form typically in the southern Atlantic ocean, and cyclones that affect Arabia come from the Arabian Sea.
In yanbu.. there was a crackling t storm which produced more than 150 mm of rain.. the winds weren’t gusty.. and caused the storm to pass longer and created a flood like situation…
Wow. Wasn’t that nice. 150mm is really a lot for thunderstorms.