Rain!

Since early this morning it's been raining in Doha. Occasionally it would stop but for the most part it's been raining all day. At times it's been raining quite hard -- I don't recall seeing anything like it in the last few years. Social media is of course all excited, with people taking pictures and posting them up.

Remember, this is a country where you could potentially go ten months without seeing rain, a solid rainfall like this is quite rare.

Of course Qatar is not designed to cope with a large amount of rain so in many places drainage can be a problem and water builds up, flooding some streets and roundabouts.

It's usually not too annoying, though I recall last year an underpass flooded because of a lack of drainage. The real danger comes if you drive on streets you are not familiar with. Some streets, especially in the Industrial Area, can have huge potholes and other hazards, things you won't see if a lot of water covers the street. What might look like an innocent puddle could be a foot-deep pothole. Thankfully I know where the dips and divots are in my neighborhood so it's easy enough to avoid. No way I'm driving in an unfamiliar neighborhood though until the rain has mostly drained away.

Still raining now, almost 18 hours of rain. With luck there’ll be a lot of flowers out in the desert next week.