UAE residents go ice chasing in Al Ain, RAK as temperatures near 0°C
When the temperature in the UAE has dropped to almost zero degrees Celsius, people have been ice-chasing. Others have been lucky enough to witness ice-like reflections, others were near-freezing outside.
The Sharjahi Nizar Ahmed left home at 11.30pm Saturday with seven friends to reach the Jebel Jais peak before sundown Sunday. ‘About 1am, we got to the point where we were able to drive, and then we hiked,’ he said. "We reached the top around 4am. But we got the coldest at -2.5°C shortly before dawn.
Nizar, who likes to chase rain and ice, says even at the low temperatures, the ice this year was few and far between. ‘When we went last year, it had rained the night before,’ he said. ‘That created icicles all over the place. It rained this year. But we went down and saw a plastic sheet which had collected dew the night before. It was very thick ice on there, it was like snow."
Temperatures in the UAE have been dropping, and there are parts where the temperature went as low as 1.8°C. But there is a gradual temperature rise in the forecast on Monday.
Experiencing freezing weather
The Dubai resident Muhammed Sajjad, who maintains the popular Instagram account @uaeweatherman, sat with fellow meteorologists at Raknah in Al Ain in the early hours of Saturday.
They could get down to 2.9°C. "We thought we were going to get frost since we’ve seen it in the past but this year we weren’t so fortunate," he said. ‘Mainly because low temperatures lasted for about five minutes’.
He also said that the citizens who travelled to it in a line of more than 30 vehicles came prepared to take in the weather. ‘Everyone was in a jacket because it was going to be freezing,’ he said. ‘We also made a fire and stood around it,’ she says.
Sajjad told Reuters: ‘We will see high temperatures from Monday onwards, but rain will be possible on Thursday. "We are going to see rain and temperatures will fall again, based on the charts," he said.
Making tea at Jebel Yibir
The Sharjah resident Saji Sahadevan and his family went with three other families to Jebel Yibir on Saturday morning to get a taste of the cold. "We went in about 5.30am and were there for a couple of hours," he said. ‘The weather was 0-1°C the whole time we were there.
Our regular explorers’ families arrived at the top anticipating an experience of a lifetime. "We got our stove and made a stew." He told me. "There we had karak tea and dosa (rice pancakes) for breakfast. It was awesome."
Saji said the roads to Jebel Yibir are now a lot better than before and it is now a really easy place for adventurers like him.
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