Here There and Everywhere

Weather: Kuwait and Qatar

You’d think, these two countries being in the same time zone and just up the road from one another, you’d think that the temperatures would be almost identical.

You’d think wrong.

Kuwait gets both hotter – and colder – that Qatar. When Kuwait gets blazing hot in the summer, the temperatures may be as much as 10° cooler in Qatar. You’d think that would be a sizeable difference, but you’d think wrong. Kuwait’s climate is so dry, the humidity so rare, that it FEELS hotter in Doha.

In Doha, it feels like the sea evaporates and leaves a coat of salt on your face. I always had to carry wipes and face cream with me in the summer. Even in the earliest hours of the day, the humidity drips off you. You change clothes frequently, to stay fresh. And yes, all this takes air-conditioning into account. If you have never lived in the Gulf, you cannot begin to imagine 1) how hot it gets and 2) what the heat and humidity together can be like.

The temperatures swing past one another in April/May, October/November. The swing has occurred a little later this year, but it definitely has occurred:

Kuwait Forecast

Qatar forecast

May 19, 2009 - Posted by intlxpatr | Doha, ExPat Life, Kuwait, Qatar, Weather