This was further amplified in October 2018 by Cyclone Luban, which spawned in the central Arabian Sea, marched westward, and rained out over the same region near the border of Yemen and Oman.[6][7] [8][4] These unusually heavy rains were tied to fluctuations in the Indian Ocean Dipole, which in turn is affected by climate change.[9] Historically, the Persian Gulf has very few cyclones. But the past decade has brought a significant increase thanks to the Indian Ocean dipole, a phenomenon linked to flooding in the western Indian Ocean, dry weather in the east and wildfires in Australia.[10]