UAE weather: Fog alert in force this week as humidity rises overnight

Areas at risk include the road between Al Ain and Abu Dhabi in particular

View of the early morning fog in the Al Furjan suburb of Dubai. Fog is expected to engulf large swathes of the country this week. Pawan Singh / The National

Fog is expected to engulf large parts of the country this week as humidity rises overnight, forecasters have warned.

Areas at risk include the road between Al Ain and Abu Dhabi, inland - particularly in the south - and parts of the north, according to the National Centre of Meteorology.

The warning is in place for the next three days, up to and including New Year’s Day.

“It will start about 2am and last until about 8am or 9am,” said a forecaster at NCM.

“Visibility will be different depending on where it is. Some areas visibility will be worse, and in some areas it will be better.”

Visibility is expected to be particularly bad in the south, where it could be less than 100 metres in parts.

“It is important everyone knows visibility could be poor on the road. Everyone should take care,” said the forecaster.

The NCM issued an alert on Sunday, warning of fog affecting large parts of the country, starting in the early hours and lasting until around 9am.

Fog is particularly prevalent in the UAE during the winter months.

Around 95 per cent of the fog seen in the UAE is radiation fog, which forms in the early hours as heat absorbed by the Earth’s surface during the day “radiates” into the air, causing water droplets to form. It dissipates in the heat of the Sun.

Advection fog is another type of fog we see here. It forms when warm, moist air passes over a cool surface, creating water vapour.

Fog needs some sort of dust or particles in the air to form, as water vapour condenses around them, which explains why the UAE experiences so much of it.

The country has averaged 132 days of fog formation a year since records began in 2006, with the largest amount of January fog seen in 2010, when there were 17 days of fog and five days of mist.

It is most often seen here between mid-December and the end of March, aided by clear skies and calm conditions.

And it can result in extremely dangerous driving conditions, such as last February, when a lorry ploughed into a line of traffic in thick fog. In total, 44 vehicles were involved in the pile-up on the E311 road between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

And in 2011, one person died and dozens were injured in a pile-up involving 127 vehicles on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway during thick fog.