Daily Mail
United Arab Emirates is creating its own rain using drones that fly into clouds and unleash electrical charges to beat the sweltering 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) heat.
The rain is formed using drone technology that gives clouds an electric shock to ‘cajole them’ into clumping together and producing precipitation.
The UAE is one of the most arid countries on Earth, and it hopes the technique could help to increase its meagre annual rainfall.
Waterfalls are also seen on the side of roads as drivers in SUVs struggle to navigate the torrential rain – despite the country being in the middle of a summer heatwave where temperatures have soared above 122F (50C).
The Center said the precipitation has been enhanced by a technique known as cloud seeding, and its purpose is to increase condensation in the hope that it might trigger a downpour.
The UAE’s cloud seeing operations are part of an ongoing $15 million (£10.8m) mission to generate rain in the country, which ranks among the world’s top 10 driest countries with an average rainfall of just three inches (78 millimetres) – 15 times less than what falls in an average year in the UK.
The rain is being created using drone technology in research led by experts at the University of Reading in the UK.
Professor Maarten Ambaum, who worked on the special project, told the BBC earlier this year that the UAE has enough clouds to create conditions which allow for rainfall.
The technology uses a drone to release electrical charges into the clouds, which helps the water droplets to merge and stick together to form precipitation, ‘like dry hair to a comb’.
‘When the drops merge and are big enough, they will fall as rain,’ Professor Ambaum said.
Alya Al-Mazroui, director of the UAE’s rain-enhancement science-research program, told Arab News in March: ‘Equipped with a payload of electric-charge emission instruments and customised sensors, these drones will fly at low altitudes and deliver an electric charge to air molecules, which should encourage precipitation.
And it is working. Video footage released by the UAE’s National Center of Meteorology shows monsoon-like downpours across the country which create a sheet of rain on the highways.
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