DELUGE: Heavy Rains And Flooding Hits Saudi Arabia - 18 People Killed, With 900 Rescued From Cars! [VIDEOS]

Heavy rains have struck Saudi Arabia this week, including in the desert capital Riyadh where schools closed on Wednesday
after floods caused traffic chaos during a severe storm. © Fayez Nureldine (AFP)

April 14, 2016 - SAUDI ARABIA - Rains and flooding have killed 18 people throughout Saudi Arabia and 915 had to be rescued from inside their vehicles, the General Directorate of Saudi Civil Defense said on Thursday.

Floodwaters inundated roadways in Riyadh, Mecca and the mountainous south of the mostly desert kingdom, the directorate said in a statement.

18 dead, nearly 1,000 people rescued in Saudi Arabia, as severe flooding grips the kingdom https://t.co/18DKKjFMPs

— Rori Donaghy (@roridonaghy) April 14, 2016

Videos posted on social media showed cars submerged in water in the southwestern city of Abha.

Heavy rains have lashed Saudi Arabia for several days and the education ministry closed schools in and around the capital Riyadh on Wednesday.

Red alert weather warning in south Saudi: this video shows Abha in Asir province experiencing severe flooding today. pic.twitter.com/Mv9Ccdd15z

— Rori Donaghy (@roridonaghy) April 14, 2016

More extreme weather footage from Saudi: This one shows flash flooding in Mecca's Taif from 7 April. pic.twitter.com/Qx8jcNiupX

— Rori Donaghy (@roridonaghy) April 13, 2016

Rivers flowing through urban areas in south Saudi due to severe flooding, this from Abha in Asir province. pic.twitter.com/3jSb0IRcEx

— Rori Donaghy (@roridonaghy) April 14, 2016

Schools shut in Riyadh today, after Saudi hit by rare severe storm leading to flooding last night. pic.twitter.com/aD4zeVRf6B

— Rori Donaghy (@roridonaghy) April 13, 2016

- Reuters.

ICE AGE NOW: Global Cooling Continues Relentlessly - Snow Covers The Road To Mecca In Saudi Arabia?! [VIDEO]

Snow on the road to Mecca

January 15, 2016 - SAUDI ARABIA - Al Jazeera confirms snow in Saudi Arabia. January 15, 2016

Video .. snow coats the migration route.

(One part of the Al Jazeera story says snow, a different part says hail. I'm guessing hail, but it still must have been a real shock to the drivers.)


WATCH: Snow covers the road to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Hailstones falling heavily between Mecca and Medina covered various parts of the region, which has taken on white.

A researcher at the weather, climate and member of the Committee naming distinctive climatic conditions said "snow seen on the migration route between Medina and Mecca formed as a result provide good moisture for the layers of the upper atmosphere led to the emergence of huge Cumulus.

Thanks to Argiris Diamantis for these links

"This news item is only in Arabic and cannot be found on the English spoken website of Al Jazeeera," says Argiris. - Ice Age Now.

PARADIGM SHIFT & DAWN OF THE AGE OF AQUARIUS: Historic Vote For Women In Saudi Arabia - 17 Women Win Seats In Municipal Election As Females Vote, Stand For Office For The FIRST TIME!

A Saudi woman casts her ballot in a polling station in the coastal city of Jeddah, on December 12, 2015. © STR / AFP

December 13, 2015 - SAUDI ARABIA - Seventeen women have won seats in municipal councils in Saudi Arabia as the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom allowed females to vote and run as candidates for the first time in history in an election on Saturday.

It was also only the third ever election in Saudi Arabia. Just men participated in the 2005 and 2011 polls.

Sabq.org, a news website affiliated with Saudi Interior Ministry, was first to report that the 17 had successfully been elected across the kingdom.

More than 900 women ran against 6,000 men for spots on the country’s 284 municipal councils.

The development is viewed as historic for Saudi Arabia where women have fewer rights than men, being forbidden to drive cars and making major life decisions without consent from male relatives, among other restrictions.

“I deeply believe in the importance of voting in order to be part of my country’s drive to empower women and elevate their status. The turnout was good and the voting proceeded smoothly. I personally voted based on the candidates’ programs and plans,” one of the female first-time votes told Gulf News.

However, the election was only for two thirds of municipal council seats which have no legislative or national powers but are rather limited to local affairs.

The turnout was also quite low, with just 25 per cent of the voters casting ballots due to election still being a new thing for the Saudis.

Salma bint Hazab al-Otaibi, who won a seat in the Madrika district of Mecca, was hailed as first woman councilor in Saudi Arabia on social media.

Huda al-Jeraisy, a daughter of a former head of the chamber of commerce, was elected in the country’s capital, Riyadh.

Two women were elected in Saudi Arabia’s most conservative region, Qassim, but their names were not released as well as the name of another female councillor from al-Babtain.

The late King Abdullah announced that the women would vote in 2015 as he had been looking to increase the public role of females in the country. - RT.

DELUGE: Saudi Capital Hit With Rare And Severe Floods - Residents Urged To Stay Indoors! [PHOTOS+VIDEO]

November 16, 2013 - SAUDI ARABIA - Severe flooding is being reported in Saudi Arabia, especially in the kingdom’s capital of Riyadh, with the government closing schools and urging people to stay indoors amid heavy rain. Flooding is rare in the country dominated by the Arabian Desert.

Image: Twitter user @Jana_oOo

Witnesses in Riaydh, which is also the country’s largest city, are reporting flooded streets and shops. Pictures posted on Twitter show cars drowning in rainwater.

Saudi Civil Defense warned citizens to stay indoors for their own safety, Al Arabiya reported.


WATCH: Flooding in Saudi Arabia.

Weather forecasts are predicting heavy rains to continue to batter Saudi Arabia for the entire weekend. The eastern part of the country looks to be hit the most by the rains.

Image: Twitter user @NidalM

Image: Twitter user @asharjoelPTI

Image: Twitter user @NidalM

The government is setting up a disaster management center in the holy city of Mecca and is planning to close schools and evacuate people in low-lying areas, Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News reported.

 Rains in the northwest city of Ha’il are expected to flood the Al Adeera valley, according to media reports.

Meanwhile, witnesses reported that villagers 70 kilometers west of Ha’il were taking shelter on the rooftops of houses, mosques, and even mountaintops as the flooding began.

Image: Twitter user @NidalM

Image: Twitter user @NidalM

Image: Twitter user @NidalM

The desert kingdom has in the past been criticized for its lack of preparedness for such situations, as flooding is rare in that part of the world.

Residents were killed during flash floods in Riyadh, Baha, and Ha’il on May 13. The rain was reportedly the heaviest in more than 25 years.

Floods in the port city of Jeddah, located on the Red Sea, killed 123 people in 2009 and 10 others in 2011. - RT.

PLANETARY TREMORS: 4.1 Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Near Niland, California!

June 03, 2013 - UNITED STATES - A shallow magnitude 4.1 earthquake was reported Monday afternoon five miles from Niland, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

USGS earthquake location.

The temblor occurred at 12:04 p.m. PDT at a depth of 1.9 miles.

According to the USGS, the epicenter was 17 miles from Brawley and 29 miles from El Centro.

USGS earthquake shakemap intensity.

In the past 10 days, there has been one earthquake magnitude 3 and greater centered nearby. - LA Times.

EXTREME WEATHER ANOMALIES: The Hottest Rain on Record Ever - Rain Falls at a Stunning 109°F in Saudi Arabia?!

Pilgrims to the holy city of Mekkah (Mecca), Saudi Arabia must have been astonished on Tuesday afternoon, when the weather transformed from widespread dust with a temperature of 113°F (45°C) to a thunderstorm with rain. Remarkably, the air temperature during the thunderstorm was a sizzling 109°F (43°C), and the relative humidity a scant 18%. It is exceedingly rare to get rain when the temperature rises above 100°F, since those kind of temperatures usually require a high pressure system with sinking air that discourages rainfall.

Figure: Thunderstorms at 109°F? This true-color satellite image of Saudi Arabia taken at 2:10 pm
local time (11:10 UTC)shows a line of thunderstorms that developed along the edge of the sea breeze
from the Red Sea. Three hours after this image was taken, Mekkah (Mecca) recorded a thunderstorm
with rain and a temperature of 109°F (43°C.)  Image credit: NASA.

However, on June 4, a sea breeze formed along the shores of the Red Sea, and pushed inland 45 miles (71 km) to Mekkah by mid-afternoon. Moist air flowing eastwards from the Red Sea hit the boundary of the sea breeze and was forced upwards, creating rain-bearing thunderstorms. According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, this is the highest known temperature that rain has fallen at, anywhere in the world. He knows of one other case where rain occurred at 109°F (43°C): in Marrakech, Morocco on July 10, 2010. A thunderstorm that began at 5 pm local time brought rain at a remarkably low humidity of 14%, cooling the temperature down to 91°F within an hour. Thunderstorms often produce big drops of cold rain, since these raindrops form several thousand meters high in the atmosphere, where temperatures are much cooler than near the surface.

Some drops even get their start as snow or ice particles, which melt on the way to the surface. Additional cooling of the drops occurs due to evaporation on the way down. However, in the case of the June 4, 2012 Mekkah storm, I think the rain was probably more like a hot shower. Large raindrops, like the kind thunderstorms produce, fall at a speed of about 10 meters per second. A balloon sounding of the upper atmosphere taken at 3 pm local time at a nearby station (Al-Midinah) found that the bottom 1000 meters of the atmosphere was 97°F (36°C) or warmer. Thus, the thunderstorms' raindrops would have been subjected to 100 seconds of some very hot air on the way to the surface, likely warming them above 100°F by the time they hit the ground. A classic 1948 study of raindrops found that, in many cases, raindrop temperatures start off cold in the first few minutes of a rain shower, then warm up to within 1°C (1.8°F) of the air temperature within a few minutes.

With the air temperature a sizzling 109°F (43°C) at the time of the June 4 thunderstorm in Mekkah, the raindrops could easily have been heated to a temperature of over 105°F (41°C) by the time they reached the surface! If substantial amounts of liquid water are present on the Earth, the planet will experience rain, as long as some mechanism to lift the warm, moist air and cause condensation can be found. If the climate continues to warm as expected, we should see an increasing number of cases where it rains at temperatures well above 100°F. On Saturday, June 2, the temperature in Mekkah hit 51.4°C (124.5°F), a new record for the city, and just 1.1°F (0.6°C) below the all-time hottest temperature record for Saudi Arabia (125.6°F, or 52°C, recorded at Jeddah on June 22, 2010.) I expect that 20 - 40 years from now, we'll begin seeing occasional cases where rain falls at a temperature above 117°F (47°C) in the desert regions of North Africa and the Middle East. - Wunderground.