A HUGE tornado has struck Qatar, with dramatic footage showing the black spiral-shaped storm clouds touching down in the desert country.
The World Cup host has also been hit with torrential rain for the first time since the tournament kicked off last month.
A huge tornado has struck Qatar
It touched down in Ras Laffan Industrial City, around 50 miles north of the Qatari capital Doha.
Qatar’s Meteorology Department shared footage of downpours and powerful hailstorms in the city.
Roads in Ras Laffan have even been flooded due to the sudden and highly-unusual deluge.
Ras Laffan is less than half an hour’s drive from Al Khor stadium, the most northern of the World Cup venues.
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A Twitter user in the Gulf state shared a photo of an enormous pile of hailstones which reportedly crashed to earth on Wednesday.
Qatar’s average annual rainfall is just 75mm a year, compared to between 800 and 1,400mm in the UK.
The average monthly rainfall is just 5.9mm, and during the dry season between June and October, rain is almost unheard of.
Hail is even more unusual, as temperatures in the Middle-Eastern nation rarely ever drop below 13C even at night during the coolest month of January.
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