MASAFI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Outside of a mountain village in the northern outskirts of the United Arab Emirates , clouds on a recent weekend suddenly crowded out the white-hot sun that bakes this desert nation in the summer months. Fierce winds blew over planters and pushed a dumpster down the street. And then came the most infrequent visitor of all: rain.

Rainfall long has fascinated the people of the Emirates. That includes both its white-thobed locals crowding into the deserts for any downpour and its vast population of foreign workers, many coming from homes in the Indian subcontinent who grew up with monsoon deluges.

But rain also carries with it promise and peril to the nation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.

With some 4 million people now estimated to be li

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