Thread by @althecat

There is a fairly spectacular weather pattern developing over the Middle East, currently delivering rain to the Levant and Iraq.

The pattern appeared in models a couple of weeks ago and appears to be strengthening.

#OurChangingClimate

A flow of water from the Amazon/Tropical Atlantic across North Africa is interacting with a stationary cut off low pressure system located over Turkey.

Here is a view of the cut off low - 24 hour satellite animation from @zoom_earth

@zoom_earth Here is a close up of the other component of the weather setup - a massive stream of airborn moisture crossing the Sahara.

@zoom_earth This view shows the full system, which is over 7000kms long.

@zoom_earth The impacts of the weather pattern are already rather spectacular here we see a brief but intense rain system flare up over Jeddah and Medina Saudi Arabia last night.

@zoom_earth And here we see a continuation of that storm, crossing rapidly over the Arabian Peninsula and bringing rain to Kuwait.

This view shows the north western edge of the system where the Sahara stream is interacting with the low system over Turkey.

And while it appears there was no rain in this burst of activity over Egypt last night, the latest weather model forecasts contain widespread rainfall in Egypt's deserts and coastal regions.

This s a sixteen day PWAT forecast for the ME. The most intense activity comes at the end, in early January.

This is the corresponding rainfall solution from the same model run which contains the water/energy solution you see above. The widespread forecast #DesertRain towards the end of the simulation run in Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia is - I think - unusual.

Here's a 12 day rainfall forecast for the Northern part of this area from the Korean KMA Model.

The forecast above shows rainfall, admittedly modest, over most of Syria.

Here's a 12 day forecast for Jordan, Israel and Lebanon. A fair bit of rain is forecast here which will run into the Jordan valley. Rainfall levels forecast for Lebanon could cause flooding.

Finally we have a 10 day rain forecast for Turkey, much of which will fall as snow. Again rainfall levels are intense enough to cause flooding in some locations.