Rains hit parts of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran with many cities in Kuwait forced to shut schools due to flooding.

Heavy rain inundated Kuwait on Monday night and early Tuesday morning causing flooding across several cities in the country.

The Education Ministry announced the closure of schools and colleges as a result of the wet weather, according to the Kuwait News Agency (Kuna).

A similar spell of flooding happened two weeks ago, heralding the change of season.

The thunderstorms responsible for the flooding have been particularly vicious, with downdraught gusts typically reaching 90 kilometres per hour. On the peninsular east of Kuwait City, Salmiyah, a gust of 115km/h was reported in the early hours.

The latest downpour was actually the tail end of a very active system that has covered much of Iraq and Syria. In two or three days, over 100mm of rain has fallen over the Euphrates and Tigris floodplains.

Now the “wet season” is upon the Middle East, the likelihood of showers remains high for the rest of the week, and especially the weekend, for Kuwait, southern Iraq, eastern Saudi and western Iran.

In the mountains of Iran, another 100mm is possible.