A characteristic of weather in the UAE, and this part of the world, is that it is relentlessly hot in the summer — as well as the four extra “shoulder” months, two before and two after summer, proper.

It was every-single-day, uniformly hot from, let’s say, mid-April, until today, when it the high temperature did not reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) — for the first time since April.

(And it was only in the past few weeks that we didn’t reach 100, for the first time since April.)

It is November, remember.

The photo, above, is the marvelous view from the balcony of our apartment.

We’re just as high up in the air the other 364 days of the year, but a clear view like this one is about a 45-days-a-year phenomena. About one day of every eight or nine, and those days jammed into about a 14-week period from late November into March.

And the high tomorrow? 82!

The precipitant of the nice weather was an honest-to-goodness storm from the northwest that left rain in the northern emirates.

This is the time of year when Europeans flock to the UAE, a dependable source of winter sun for those who otherwise live in cold, gray and wet environments. Those are the people who go home and rave about the weather here … without living through the 200 days of brutal heat.

Even rain storms, always welcome, come with down sides here. The inevitable flooding in a country without topsoil, and wind.

We had a full-blown sand storm yesterday, which leaves Abu Dhabi gritty and the particulate-heavy air dangerous to breathe.

Then you get a bit of rain, perhaps, some hours of clearing.

And even that fine view is likely to be occluded by the return of wind, after the storm, which usually dries out the country in a matter or hours, and then picks up the granular “soil” at surface level and turns the sky back into a dusty moonscape.

But we will worry about that later. For the moment, we are appreciating the view of the local islands and beaches we usually cannot see. Even from our perch.