Satellite image of the United Arab Emirates before the storms, captured on April 3, 2024, by the Operational Land Imager 2 on Landsat 9.
A powerful storm system battered major cities in the Arabian Peninsula. This slow-moving storm system brought extraordinary rainfall to the UAE, causing widespread flooding, disrupting transport, and overwhelming areas like Dubai and Abu Dhabi with water levels far above annual averages. The system first hit Oman on April 14 and continued to batter the UAE through most of the day on April 16. Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania,that three low-pressure systems formed a train of storms slowly moving along the jet stream—the river of air that moves weather systems—toward the Persian Gulf. The strong low-pressure system deliveredSome areas remained flooded on April 19, when Landsat 9 passed over the region for the first time since the storms.