Rain-scarce UAE sets on a cloud-seeding mission

Al-Ain 

The United Arab Emirates, one of the world's most arid countries, is striving to capture every drop of rain it can wring from the clouds that pass over the desert nation.

In the blazing sunshine at Al-Ain airport, a twin-propeller Beechcraft stands ready to fly into action at a moment's notice on a cloud-seeding mission.

The plane is armed with salt flares that are fired into a promising cloud to increase condensation and hopefully trigger a downpour. 

The UAE, an oil-rich federation of about eight million people, ranks among the world's top 10 driest countries. 

Its annual rainfall stands at 78 millimetres (three inches), more than 15 times less than what falls in an average year in the United Kingdom. 

The UAE's National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) runs the so-called cloud seeding programme. 

Its Abu Dhabi-based forecasters monitor weather radars to tell pilots when to take off on rainfall-inducing sorties. 

"As soon as they see some convective cloud formations, they launch us on a flight to investigate" to try "to seed the cloud", said Mark Newman, deputy chief pilot at NCMS. 

Speaking at the base for a fleet of four Beechcraft King Air C90 aircraft, Newman said summer is usually the busiest season.