Rain, Snow Persist in Turkey; Heat Bakes Mideast Gulf

By Kristina Pydynowski, Senior Meteorologist

April 9,2015; 10:25AM,EDT

 

 

A slow-moving storm system will continue to impact parts of the Middle East with a wide range of adverse weather into Friday as heat builds around the Mideast Gulf.
The storm will crawl from central Turkey to the vicinity of Armenia into Friday, producing rain, gusty winds, blowing dust and even snow across the Middle East.
As the storm pulls eastward, rain will taper off across southern Greece and far western Turkey overnight Thursday. On the other hand, the opposite will occur on Friday around Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thunderstorms will erupt across western Iran.
In between, enough cold air will be in place for the rain to fall as snow across the interior of central Turkey.
A changeover to 2 to 8 cm (1 to 3 inches) of snow will occur in Ankara Thursday night into Friday morning. A little snow will even fly in Konya on Friday.

While snow will not fall, it is a chilly wind that will have residents shivering in Istanbul, Turkey, and Athens, Greece, into Friday. These winds will gust up to 90 kph (55 mph) in Athens and other parts of southern Greece. Sporadic power outages and damage will result, as well as turning the Aegean Sea rough and dangerous for boaters.
As the winds howl south of the Mediterranean Sea, blowing dust could get kicked up and reduce visibility on Friday from eastern Libya and Egypt to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
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Temperatures will also soar south of the storm around the Mideast Gulf (also known as the Khaleej) into this weekend. This includes central Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and into Iran.
"This time of year is on the early side for the heat to get to the [Mideast] Gulf," stated AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Jim Andrews. "The water usually keeps them cooler."
It is more common for heat to bake the Mideast Gulf starting in later April or May, according to Andrews.
The storm system impacting Turkey and surrounding areas will dip far enough to the south to ease the heat early next week. However, little, if any, of the showers and thunderstorms set to occur from the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean to western Iran and Azerbaijan this weekend will sink down to the Mideast Gulf.