The country’s most punishing stretch of summer officially entered its home stretch on August 11, opening a roughly three-week window that traditional astronomy links to the eventual easing of extreme heat.
That window, known as Marakhiyat Al Qalaid, begins with the rising of the Al Kulaybin star and closes out Al Qayz, the peak summer season long recognized across the Arabian Peninsula.
According to Ibrahim Al Jarwan, Chairman of the Emirates Astronomical Society and a member of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences, the phase extends through September 3 and represents the last leg of the year’s hottest period.
Relief, however, will not be immediate. Forecasters at the National Centre of Meteorology projected highs reaching 48°C in inland zones on the season’s opening day, with a slow cooldown anticipated mainly near the coast. Gusts of up to 40km/h were also expected to kick up dust.
Humidity and severe heat tend to define August throughout the UAE, driven by the Indian seasonal low-pressure system alongside thermal lows arriving from the southwest. Building convective clouds sometimes deliver afternoon showers to the eastern and southern regions.
A more significant marker arrives on August 24 with the pre-dawn appearance of Suhail, also called Canopus, low on the south-eastern horizon. For countless generations across the peninsula, this star has signaled that the summer’s fiercest heat is beginning to loosen its grip, ushering in cooler nights and shifting humidity levels over an extended changeover.
Suhail does not, however, close out the astronomical summer. The season formally yields to autumn in the Northern Hemisphere at this year’s equinox on September 23.
Ranked as the sky’s second-brightest star behind Sirius, Canopus sits roughly 310 light-years away. Al Jarwan noted that daylight and darkness reach near-equal length about 45 days after the star surfaces, signaling autumn’s gradual arrival, while winter traditionally sets in around 100 days after its first appearance.
