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Extreme heatwave hits Middle East as blazing summer threatens Arab countries

June 8, 2022 at 12:09 pm

People fill their jerrycans with water [ESSA AHMED/AFP via Getty Images]

The Indian monsoon depression has hit the Middle East causing high temperatures in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Iraq, Iran and Egypt.

The city of Jahra in Kuwait recorded a temperature of more than 50 degrees Celsius, according to Sky News.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian Meteorological Authority expects the Indian seasonal depression to extend to Egypt, causing an extreme heatwave, but its effect will be less severe compared to neighbouring countries.

The passage of India’s seasonal depression over the Mediterranean Sea modifies air mass and increases temperature and humidity, thus increasing the air temperature.

The seasonal depression results from intense solar radiation that heats the air over land while the adjacent water bodies remain cold. This leads to a decrease in air density in the land areas with a reduction in the value of the surface atmospheric pressure, eventually forming the depression.

The seasonal depression attracts the monsoons to India and Southeast Asia and results in a significant rise in temperatures in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Iraq and Egypt.

Its impact also affects the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey and parts of the European continent, especially the southern and eastern regions.

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