Menacing forks of lightening and cracks of thunder were the first portends of doom followed by an apocalyptic hailstorm that sent people diving for cover.
Then came the rain, turning the streets of Baghdad into rivers within minutes.

I was in a car waiting for an appointment yesterday when the freak hail stones, some the size of Brussels sprouts, started crashing down from the heavens. “The windscreen is going to crack,” yelled my driver. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
As we watched, the ice turned into water globules that spurted from the sky like jets from a power-shower in a posh hotel.
Houses and shops were flooded, cars broke down and pedestrians were forced to wade knee-deep through dirty water. One teenager died when an electric cable touched the puddle he was in, adding to the chaos.
Preferring to drive rather than swim home, I gave up on my appointment and asked my driver to exit the sodden car park where we had been waiting.
Unfortunately the centre of Baghdad now resembled a dirty version of Venice, with stinking canals of rain water littered with drink cartons and biscuit wrappers replacing what had been roads just half an hour earlier.
Floating with the rest of the traffic, we made our way slowly down a main shopping street. The water was about a foot high, lapping against the bottom of the car and threatening to spill in through the doors. Thankfully the rain stopped before the level rose much higher, but it had already caused havoc.

In Sadr City, a Shia slum in the east of the capital, a friend of mine was waiting at a relatives’ house for a wedding when the heavens opened.
“Most houses in Sadr City are below street level so the water immediately started to pour into the living room,” he said.
“Within two or three minutes it had reached the level of the couch. We had to stand on the chairs.”
Sewage washed out of the drains along with the rainwater.
“After 15 minutes, we gave up trying to stay dry and waded out of the room,” my friend said. The wedding reception was moved to another part of town.
A second man, Yunis Abu Mohamed, 55, was upset at the bad drainage system.