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What happened, where and when?
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan's climate ranges from Mediterranean climate to desert climate but it is characterized by an overall arid climate. During Winter, the temperatures usually drop to an average of 7.5 degrees and can reach subzero degrees around January, with occasional snow and hailstorms, especially in open areas in eastern areas in the north and the south. Despite its overall dry climate, the kingdom also witnesses torrential rains during the winter season causing floods in different areas of the country.
Starting in the evening of Sunday, 19/11/2023, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was exposed to a severe depression with the noon hours affecting all the kingdom’s governorates dropping the temperatures to below 10 degrees. The Meteorological Agency issued warnings of strong winds exceeding in some areas the barrier of 65 km / h, which leads to rising dust and low horizontal visibility, especially in the Badia regions. The rate of rainfall fell greater than usual at this time of the year, which led to the formation of torrential rains in cities, valleys, and water catchment areas, according to the report of the Ministry of Water. The ministry reported around 4 million cubic meters were stored by dams from rain in 24 hours recording the highest amount of rainwater storage, bringing the total storage in the 15 main dams to 68,503 million cubic meters, representing 23.78 percent of their storage capacity of 288,128 million cubic meters.
These harsh winter conditions have impacted and continue to impact many community groups in the north and south of Jordan. Some households in Ma'an (South of Jordan) and Irbid (North of Jordan) governorates were raided by floodwaters causing damage to some of their household items with no injuries or deaths according to the social sources. Tented settlements in remote areas were heavily impacted with their tents flooded with water and were evacuated to emergency shelters by the civil defense. The civil defense teams also managed to rescue some of the families that lived close to the valleys and were trapped in their homes due to the overflow of the valleys. The affected families are from regions that are affected by harsh winter conditions every year as they suffer from poor livelihood and shelter conditions.
The identified families have approached community centers of multiple humanitarian organizations seeking assistance as they will continue to suffer during the winter season to secure adequate and warm living arrangements with their economic situation. The affected people include Jordanians and non-Jordanians, some with formal identification and some lacking proper identification to access service. These groups include vulnerable Jordanians, Syrian refugees (with different registration statuses), Iraqi refugees, Pakistani daily workers, and Sudanese and Yemeni asylum seekers.
Even though the mentioned circumstances during winter are not new, however, the JNRCS and other actors were able to respond in previous years to these events with the available winterization funds. This year, there was a noticeable lack of sufficient humanitarian funding covering the basic needs of different community groups. This is mainly due to other funding priorities related to other humanitarian crises in the region and globally.