Despite forecasts of rain, motorists have taken advantage of sunny skies the past couple of days to clean their cars, bringing brisk business to car wash stations in Doha, it is learnt.
There were long queues on Sunday at many car wash stations, some of which even had to place traffic cones at the entrance to regulate the arrival of more vehicles.
Abdul Hakeem, a Nigerian expatriate, said he was greeted by long queues of vehicles at a popular car wash station in Doha as early as 7:30am.
“Early morning is a good time to avoid long queues at the car wash. Usually, there are only a few motorists having their vehicles washed at this time of the day. But maybe because the sun has been out these past two days that many motorists made the most of the good weather,” he said.
Another motorist, Shadi Mohamed, lamented that he had to wait for more than two hours to get his car washed. “While there are shorter queues at other standalone car wash shops, I still prefer having my car washed at a petrol station even when it is crowded because I am satisfied with their services.”
Rabin Dhital, who washes cars at a parking lot of a hypermarket in Doha, said that business was slow when the country experienced heavy rains and thunderstorms last week.
“But we were still grateful that despite the rains, there were still some customers who availed our services,” he said.
For Monday, the Met department warned of strong wind and high seas in offshore areas, while inshore areas will experience partly cloudy to cloudy with a chance of scattered rains at places. Forecast for offshore areas is partly cloudy to cloudy with a chance of scattered rain and hazy to misty later.