How many days until Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day is 14 February, a fixed date and an ordinary working day in the Emirates. It has no place on the public holiday list, but commercially it is one of the most concentrated days of the year, and the logistics behind it start well before the date.

Flowers are the clearest indicator. The country is a major transit point for cut flowers moving between East Africa, the Netherlands and the rest of the Gulf, and the volume passing through the cold chain at the airport in the days before 14 February is far above any other point in the calendar. Restaurant tables along the waterfront and in the hotel districts are arranged weeks ahead, and the evening traffic on the coastal roads behaves like a weekend rather than a weekday.

February also happens to be the pleasantest month of the year here, which helps: daytime temperatures in the mid-twenties, low humidity, and an outdoor evening that needs no more preparation than walking outside. In years when Ramadan falls in the same part of the calendar, the two overlap, and the date is marked more quietly.

The countdown runs to the start of 14 February each year and rolls over automatically once the day has passed.