How does a sandstorm feel like?

Pix credit: nricafe.com/

A lot of sand

Most people in the world has never experienced a sandstorm. Well, maybe in movies.

But all the high pixel resolution, surround sound and 3D effect will never ever replace the experience of a real sandstorm. So, how often do we get sandstorms in Qatar?

Well, maybe a few small ones a year and a biggie once a year. And then, there is the mother of all sandstorm in 1 April 2015, this year. All old-timers in Qatar will tell you this is the worst sandstorm in living memory.

You get local sandstorm all the time because Qatar is low lying, is windy and there is plenty of sand. The wind is blowing all the time and you see tumbleweeds and small swirling sand storm right outside your door or in the next empty lot. These are local 'storms', harmless and usually die down after a few minutes.

The bigger ones typically originate from a desert in a neighbouring country and travel across borders to reach you. Of course you are on low land and do not see it but satellite or airborne photos will show a sandstorm moving across the land; just as any decent Hollywood movie will depict a sandstorm.

Start of a sandstorm

You feel the sandstorm presence by increased wind velocity, the howling of wind and decreasing visibility. If you are home, you are likely to stay home. If you are already outside, you'll notice a decrease a traffic, more cars turning on their hazard lights, decrease in visibility and basically, sand flying everywhere.

Most of us sit out a sandstorm at home or in the office. Most sandstorms die within a few hours and you step out to find sand everywhere, debris from your neighbours dumped on your doorstep, everything looks sandy or brown and your car coated in dust and fine sand.

The once a year biggie or the mother of all sandstorm we had in 1 April can be quite frightening even if you are at home. 

Mother of all sandstorm

This mother of all sandstorm originated in Saudi Arabia and reached Qatar near midnight. You can hear the howling wind through double-glazed windows and feel the rattle throughout the night. You wake up to find a fine layer of sand within your home, look out of the window to see visibility down to almost five meters and almost unable to open the door past the howling wind and 6 inches of sand dumped against the door.

Many of us received messages that schools and a number of offices are closed. Visibility is almost zero on the road, schools are closed and many flights were diverted. The entire Qatar was almost in a shutdown mode.

Social media went into a frenzy and you read news and watch pictures of a massive sandstorm rolling across the land captured off aerial cameras, of houses and basement carparks dumped with a layer of sand, of zero visibility on the roads, of fire alarms going off mistaking sand for smoke, of aircrafts grounded or diverted at the airport, of massive cleaning up of roads, shops and offices.

This sandstorm was so massive that it travelled all the way to India's West coast and dumped sand there. Qatar was lucky that the storm gathered in the late night and there were no reports of major accidents nor casualties caused by the storm. Had the storm started during the day, it is likely to cause major accidents on the road.

Like earthquake, there are apparently after-sandstorm as well. We continue to have sandstorms for a couple of weeks after that massive sandstorm although they were all of a much smaller scale.

Why am I writing this blog a couple of months after 1 April? Well, we had a small sandstorm these couple of days and the sand outside my door reminded me of that massive storm again.

Welcome to the world of sandstorm.