I grew up in greater Los Angeles. A place that, as anyone who pays attention to weather and geography, is mostly a desert brought to life by massive amounts of water imported great distances. The Colorado River. The Owens Valley.

But never, in my decades in SoCal, did I ever rush outside just to see rain.

Today, I did that. In Abu Dhabi.

The Arabian Peninsula is, of course, a serious desert. A no-messin’-around, dry-as-a-bone and hot-as-heck desert. Maybe not quite the Atacama. Not the Namib. But in the competition. We’re just 50 miles or so from a part of the peninsula so barren it is known as The Empty Quarter.

It rains here 2-4 inches per year. Sometimes less. Or less than one-quarter as much rain as Los Angeles gets, per year.

(And I suspect it rains even less here. Really. I do. The vegetation reminds me of Palm Springs. That is, a little bit of scrub, a lot of sand and nothing green without lots and lots of irrigation.)

So, today, there were allegations of a 50 percent chance of some measurable rain. And by rain, we mean anything that is water that leaks out of the sky.

So, at about, 3 p.m., someone walked into the office and said, “Hey,  it’s raining.”

And, I kid you not, a half-dozen people immediately got up from their work and walked outside to see if this could be true. What it reminded me of? Someone in SoCal announcing, “Hey, it’s snowing!” That would set people running for the door, right? Same thing, here. Except for rain.

Backtracking a little.  You spend some months here, and you suspect it never rains. It’s that dry. It’s that hot. It doesn’t rain. It can’t. There is no standing fresh water. No rivers or lakes or hints that any ever have existed. It feels like a waterless, parched place. And it convinces you that rain just does not happen here. And when you reach that conclusion, that’s when you run outside with the guy from Florida (and if you’re from Florida, you know rain) … to see a few wet spots on the ground.

See, the rain had stopped. It started, dumped a few fat drops. And quit. It was over before we could get outside. But at least two people said they had stood still … and could feel drops hitting them. Lucky suckers.

Rain.

Later in the day, it actually did rain, a little. While we were inside, working. But rain enough to slicken the roads, and that’s just plain terrifying. This already is a place where driving is like playing Roller Ball, and the idea of putting a film of water on top of 10-11 months of oil and sludge that has accrued on the streets … well, I’m sure every tow truck in the nation was in action tonight.

When we left the office, the ground was wet. It had stopped raining, but there were puddles of water. Yes. Puddles. What a concept. I even saw a guy sweeping gallons of dirty water off his porch. (Because things here aren’t built to drain; why would they be? It rains about five days a year.)

So, yes, rain. And apparently there is a chance of more tomorrow. I will believe it when I see it. AndI may even go stand in it. Just to be sure, to make sure my eyes aren’t tricking me. Mirages, and all.