Dubai authorities are using artificial rain to neutralize the extreme heat that is prevalent in the area. The heavy downpour permeates a busy highway and triggers tricky driving situations for the stream of SUVs.
Heavy downpours would be common in parts of Southeast Asia, the reverse is always the case in the United Arab Emirates, as the country is currently in the summit of a summer heatwave which has witnessed temperatures regularly goes beyond 120F.
According to the National Center of Meteorology of UAE, the artificial rain was facilitated by cloud seeding operations to increase the Gulf country’s rainfall.
Recently, the UAE’s national weather service posted video footage of the artificial rains.
Dubai’s cloud seeding operations are among the ongoing mission to create precipitation in the country, which has an average rainfall of around four inches.
The cloud seeding operations operate via manned aircraft that fires chemicals like silver iodide into the clouds in a bid to produce more precipitation.
As reported by The National, the heavy rainfall made waterfalls to appear in Al Ain and made driving conditions dangerous.
In a bid to curb the UAE’s sinking water table, the country invested $15 million in nine different artificial rain projects in 2017.
One system that is about to be tried in the UAE employs drones to launch electrical charge into the clouds to increase precipitation.
The project is being handled by researchers at the University of Reading in England. Professor Maarten Ambaum, a researcher that worked on the project, told the British Broadcasting Corporation in March that the UAE possesses the needed clouds to create conditions that are conducive to rain.
The project attempts to merge the water drops and stick when they receive an electrical pulse, “like dry hair to a comb”.
Ambaum said: “When the drops merge and are big enough, they will fall as rain.”
Application of electrical shocks to clouds is preferred as it doesn’t require chemicals.
