Heavy rains Wednesday in governorates of the Kingdom's south and west left some villages isolated and led to power outages. Civil Defense administrators have mobilized all their resources in response to the bad weather, which is expected to continue. The Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) forecast indicated that there will be medium-to-low clouds over southern parts of the Kingdom and parts of the west. Rain-bearing cumulus thunderclouds, accompanied by high winds that will lower visibility, will appear over parts of the southwest and west of the Kingdom including Jizan and Asir and extending to the Taif highlands. The Riyadh region and area between Makkah, Madina and Najran and some inland southern regions will witness poor visibility due to dust, the forecast said. Al-Qunfudah Governorate and rural centers under its jurisdiction witnessed heavy rain that led to repeated power outages and dust storms and severe winds brought down lampposts. In Al-Leeth Governorate, heavy rain left some villages cut off from the coastal road and closed some of the road's lanes, which disrupted traffic for several hours. In Rijal Alma' Governorate in the southern part of the Kingdom, floods isolated citizens from their villages and swept away a car driven by a man in his 20s and a water tanker driven by a Pakistani. The storms also knocked down electricity polls in some villages. Maj. Gen. Abdul Wahid Al-Thubaiti, director general of the Civil Defense in Asir Region said his administration was coordinating with the Traffic Department to close roads made unsafe by the weather. Heavy rains struck Al-Aradhiah Al-Shimalia center and caused flash floods in the valleys. Sheikh Saad Al-Kathiri said it had been many years the area had seen so heavy rains. The storms isolated some villages and floods inundated some government administrations, but there were no accidents and no people were left stranded, a Civil Defense source said.
