watch out -- bad weather conditions next week

next week shall witness cold, real cold weather condition (just to say the least). Even though it is too early to confirm, but it seems like snow shall previal as well.

Saudi Arabia bans all things red ahead of Valentine's Day

(CNN) -- Saudi Arabia has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine's Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin, local media reported Monday.

Hijab (Vail) in Turkey, what is the fuss all about

whilst the American are busy with their 2008 presidential elections, the Lebanese are still working out a way to fill the Lebanese state president post, the Palestinians and the Iraqis are mourning their fatalities, the Turks are spending an awful lot of time disputing whether or not Hijab is allowed at their universities. There is always something that i do not get about Turkey. It is a predominantly Muslim country (>98%) with around 60% of its population wearing the Vail. Cannot we just assume that it all boils down to personal freedom of choice,? or at least personal preference? There ought to be some more important for the turks to worry about!

Hijab (Vail) in Turkey, what is the fuss all about

whilst the American are

The Aftermath

Of course, the Aftermath of the snow storm. However, you may like to know the origins of the word "Aftermath"; originally meant "the grass that grows after the first crop of hay has been taken", from an old word "math", meaning to mow

Commonly, on the other hand, it is used to descirbe what happens after

-Queen Alia Amman international Airport was closed all night and was reopened this morning at 9:30 (so my wife can arrive from Dubai today)

-Wide spread freezing after the temperature dropped to below zero during the night

-36 hours of now caused at least 40cm of accumulation in areas like west Shemisani (around 940 M above sea level)

- temperature now At 11 am IS 2.1 degrees.

- bitter cold tonight (-4) with more freezing and hazardous driving conditions

- All businesses , government etc are closed for the second day in a row

- The low pressure system has moved to to the east and we are under the remaining front. Skies will become partly cloudy, some snow flurries every now and then.

-Temperature on the rise tomorrow and Saturday to reach again seasonal average

-Humidity is still high (90%)

-Atmospheric presure is on the rise,, actually has risen by 10 mb since last night confirming the end of the storm

-This storm was marked by high winds all through due to the low value of the atmospheric pressure the prevailed during the storm


-Main roads are open, but one should exercise extreme caution, inner roads are almost close and I do not recommend driving at inner roads without 4x4, as you are bound to get stuck and hamper the efforts of others who have emergencies.

- Have not heard of major accidents, power loss, except on the personal level, i am running out of food supplies! But i will resolve the issue this afternoon

- The fun part is over, the ugly part of melting snow, slippery conditions, cold evening and depressing scenery of dirty snow remians.


The following are pictures that i took this morning from the window of my home











Note the frozen water drops on the left bottom side of the picture indicating the sub zero temperatures

Snow and More snow

It started snowing in Amman after mid night.

This morning, it is bilizard like conditions and still snowing. Unlike last week, it is going to be difficult to get to the office. It seems i will resume work through my VPN.

Snow is to resume at noon, when another cold front will sweep the area

Weather map

Tuesday map

Big weather system -- watch out

(picture on the left is taken last Tuesday)

It seems like a big weather system is coming to the Eastern Med. Deep low pressure system accompanied with really high winds (in excess of 90Km/hour).

The effect of this system shall start tomorrow evening and intensify on Tue, where snow is expected in all Areas. I will not miss it inshalla, as i m leaving oman tomorrow morning to Amman skipping a 48 scheduled stop over in Dubai.

Last time i was in Oman was early this year, the only noticeble change is more Traffic , as every where else in this world.

Is it logical to turn on A/C in Jan

Yes, if you are in muscat.
I left Amman, and it was bitter cold, i arrived at Muscat at around 3 AM, and the outside temperature in the Airport was 20 C. I arrived at the hotel, it was kind of discomfortably warm. Tried to sleep, but to no avail , until the AC unit was turned on.

above freezing snow! is it a myth or reality

It is a reality, and it happened Yesterday!! Yesterday morning, It was snowing like crazy, when my thermometer was well above freezing (around 4 degrees C).

This seems against everything we learned in science classes when we were taught that snow melts when the temperature rises above Zero C (or 32 F). How then did we witness snow?

The naive answer is that snow start melting indeed but it did not have enough time to completely melt before it reached the ground. That is partially true, but this is not what happened yesterday!! Yesterday the upper atmosphere was cold and wet, so snow formed. The lower layers were dry with temperature above freezing. The catch here is DRY, while snow is following, it started melting. Now water of course, has a good tendency to evaporate, The evaporation is falling snow took place at higher rates than normal due to the dryness of the lower levels of the atmosphere. To transfer melting snow from liquid state to vapor state, energy is required. This energy is taken from snow crystals themselves, so the energy within the snow flake becomes less, and henceforth, its temperature goes down. What are we having here:-

The atmosphere is warm enough to cause snow to melt; the atmosphere is dry enough to cause evaporation of melting snow; energy is required for evaporation,. This energy is taken from snow crystals causing them to cool down. If the evaporation rate is just right, the temperature of the snow crystal drops back to zero and the crystal maintains its freezing state. The crystal is at Zero temperature, and the atmosphere is above zero, therefore, snow keeps falling because it is still at zero temperature regardless of the fact that its surrounding is really above zero.

Summary, when the atmosphere is above freezing and the wind is dry, snow flake can keep falling. There is a formula that tells you for at what temperature snow can still fall at what humidity level. In fact, and based on such formula, snow can still fall at temperature of as high as 8 degrees when the humidity is 20% . Interesting, isn't

Fairy Tale wedding ends before it started

"We decided to remain friends", fairly common statement and it was the statement that Eddie Murphy and Tracey Edmonds made two weeks after they got wed at Bora Bora Island in French Polynesia on Jan. 1, 2008. If this incident took place in conservative countries like the middle east, i could imagine what reasons are entailed, but knowing Eddie, no, i do not believe that this is what he was expecting from a 40 year movie star. Otherwise, he would have chosen the virgin islands for the ceremony and not Bora Bora!