Vehicles ploughing through waist-deep floodwaters, inundated shopping malls – Dubai woke up to such startling scenes on Friday morning after torrential rains lashed the Gulf city. Images more common in Delhi and Mumbai during the rainy season played out in the desert metropolis, sparking a wave of comparisons between the cities by social media users.
“This is not Mumbai, Delhi, Guwahati… Dubai today early morning. Vehicles navigate floodwater in Dubai’s Al Barsha 1 following heavy rain,” one social media user posted on X, along with multiple clips of heavily waterlogged streets.
Dubai's usually glittering skyline of skyscrapers gave way to an unsettling sight of submerged roads, with people seen struggling to push their vehicles through heavily waterlogged streets.
Another video doing the rounds on social media showed flooding inside Mall of the Emirates. Mall staff cleared the affected areas later, as per the video.
In Sharjah, the neighbouring city’s main street was completely submerged in the early hours, with residents wading through floodwater barefoot. One man was even seen cycling through the deluge, the water rising almost to the top of his wheels, according to a report by AFP.
Dubai floods - Emirates axes 13 flights; delays follow
UAE airport authorities were forced to cancel or delay dozens of flights on Friday as the heaviest rain in months battered the desert nation, flooding roads across major cities.
Dubai’s Emirates airline scrapped 13 flights, while neighbouring Sharjah airport also reported multiple delays and cancellations after an overnight downpour that jolted residents awake with flashes of lightning and booming thunder.
As the storm approached on Thursday, Dubai Police had urged residents to stay indoors unless travel was “absolutely necessary.” By early Friday, water-pumping trucks were deployed across the city to clear blocked roads and large pools of standing water.
The Dubai Airports website showed dozens of flights delayed on Friday, with several cancellations. “Some flights are cancelled or delayed due to adverse weather,” a spokesperson said.
Earlier, the National Center of Meteorology had warned of rainfall across the UAE from Thursday to Friday, including in Dubai and the capital, Abu Dhabi.
The scenes brought back memories of April 2024, when record-breaking rains triggered widespread flooding and led to the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights at Dubai’s main international airport.
UAE weather forecast
According to a report by Gulf News, the National Centre of Meteorology has forecast partly cloudy skies on Saturday, predicting the formation of convective clouds bringing rainfall to parts of the country, particularly across the northern part of the UAE.
In its daily weather bulletin, the centre said winds on Saturday will be moderate to fresh, strengthening at times with cloud activity and raising dust and sand.
