SALALAH: Salalah and its adjoining areas witnessed heavy drizzle on Thursday. It brought down the morning temperatures by 2 degrees to 29 degrees Celsius from Wednesday’s 31degrees.
Even though a pleasant surprise to everyone, it was not unexpected as people were expecting it anytime due to sudden change in weather for the last three days, with cloud movements and high humidity.
The drizzling has also lessened the humidity while the overall temperatures of the day remained between 30 and 32 degrees.
There is still five more days to go when the Khareef season will officially begin. As per the official calendar, the season starts on June 21 and goes on till the end of August.
The drizzling, according to most people in the city, is an announcement of the ensuing Khareef season, preparations for which are already in place.
According to weather experts, the Khareef is yet to settle fully in Salalah and Thursday’s drizzling was part of pre-monsoon scattered rains.
“Pre-monsoon rains are usual. The unusual thing this time around is its direction. Generally, the direction of monsoon or pre-monsoon rains in Salalah is west to east. Now it is east to west under the influence of some weather disturbances, which are happening far away from the country,” they said.
Generally, the monsoon or pre-monsoon rains impact mountains more than the plains. But the current weather condition has its impact mostly on coastal areas and a little on the mountains.
The experts are hopeful of a normal Khareef season, which is likely to settle in Salalah from June 21.
The city remained cloudy this week, giving people a topic to discuss whether the clouds are indications of the ensuing Khareef or the impact of Cyclone Biparjoy's movement, which is making news for its direction and location of actual landfall.
"Whatever may be the case, this is for sure that the Khareef season is going to start on June 21 and continue till August. There may be some changes but preparations are on. We are ready for it," said a vegetable shop owner, who also keeps green coconuts, a signature product of Salalah and very popular among Khareef visitors.
The hovering clouds, along with high humidity, are making their hope stronger and expecting an impressive Khareef this year.
@patkaushal
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