Dubai gets a year's worth of rain in a day

Built up in the desert, the United Arab Emirates wasn’t made to withstand this, as some parts of the country were pounded with more rain than ever recorded in one day. The water bursting into this mall, leaving staff struggling to keep up. While drivers saw roads transformed into rivers, this is the first time I see in the history of UE how the rain come. The Dubai International Airport, considered by one measure the busiest in the world, now left in chaos with flights disrupted. And stranded passengers recording videos of that flooded tarmac. It’s a total difficult situation. I’m trying. I want to go home. Toronto entrepreneur Irfan Shikashi has spent half his business trip just bailing out his rented apartment, that view of the famous Burj Khalifa skyscraper. Nothing to write home about this time. I’ve been here several, several times before. And yeah, the rain, maybe 10 minutes, 20 minutes maximum and over. But this? This was something else. As a cat hung on tight for dear life, a police officer went viral. This memorable rescue. But this weather is no joke. With climate change, what we see a lot is that you expect increased intensity of storms like this. For some, the flooding highlights the UA ES use of flares released in the sky to spur rainfall known as cloud seeding. It’s done this way in drier climates. But this expert tells CBC News no one can really fly in those conditions to cloud seeds. So that’s another indication where I can, I mean for sure say that there was no cloud seeding involved in that. In Dubai, schools are closed for the week and people are being told to work from home. This usually arid emirate is still drying out. Thomas Daggett, CBC News, Toronto.