Alastair Thompson Profile picture
May 30, 2021 27 tweets 23 min read Read on X
A big day for #WestAfricaMonsoon observation.

A full plume event is becoming obvious in central & eastern Europe + Russia. We also have thunderstorms over the Red Sea, and a low circulation heading towards a collision with water vapour over Israel.

Today's forecasts follow.
Visually speaking this is the most extraordinary looking satellite observation of the day.

Now into its sixth day the #EastAfricaWaterPlume has been generating lots of rain over the Red Sea, both last night and today, & right now just off the coast of Jeddah. @Arab_Storms
Here we see a wider view while it is not that obvious in this view, the stream of water vapour heading up the Western Sahara coast is running fast and hot. Later I will post an initial post tracking its impact in Europe. But for now its worth looking closer at North Africa.
This strip up the coast of Western Sahara is mostly desert and this #DesertRain has now been falling pretty much continuously for serveral days, not just here but also inland over Algeria. The rain field is roughly three times the size of the UK. This is small in Sahara scale. ImageImageImage
Here's another view of the tip of this latest #WestAfricaWaterPlume, the third major one this year, showing its speed, power and trajectory. This has consistently involved a right turn, aiming for the southern end of Italy and Sicily with a lot of moisture heading south-east.
This view shows Mediterranean Sea cloud movements from which you can just discern the trajectory of the water vapour which is heading in multiple directions simultaneously. Some north east over the Black Sea and a lot east-south-east along the Med. coast towards the Levant.
In this animation you can see the broader picture, including were it seems most of the moisture traversing Europe the last few days is headed, up a well trodden past to the east of Moscow into the Arctic. This time the trajectory is the lowest it has been thus far.
For now though we will maintain our attention on the Middle East and North Africa where possibly the most interesting #ArabianStorms activity to date is underway. There is a lot going on in this image from the first post in this thread. And we are going to break it down a bit.
But first some background. This is the area in which we now think what we call "civilisation" - i.e. cities & states - first appeared in the Western Hemisphere.

This @The_Histocrat series is a perfect introduction to this subject. youtube.com/playlist?list=…
The archeological record from this area suggests in the relatively recent past i.e. within the last 20,000 years there was significant climatic change here, including as recently as the beginning of Egyptian civilization forests, grasslands and wild game. ImageImage
In this more humid world the area around the red-sea was the bridge between Asia and Africa and it is thought that humans migrated in both directions through here possibly for millions of years. And this may also explain in some part why this area is so religiously important.
The areas in which we are seeing interesting storm and cloud activity today are the areas which appear to be where humanity discovered farming around 18,000 years ago.

And there are other interesting things about today's weather besides.
Today's weather has several novel properties not yet seen.
1. meandering and moderate ground level winds.
2. thunderstorms over the red sea
3. a layer of higher altitude water transport across Egypt into Jordan/Israel.
& a modest system with associated moisture west of Cairo.
A characteristics of these #WestAfricanMonsoon plumes is their complexity. Multiple plume streams appear to be located within the same stack of air.

Here are three.
1. cloud at top is heading north.
2. In middle a low heading east
3. Right bottom high-alt clouds north east.
And then when you look at this with ground level winds over laid you see none of this movement relates at all to what is happening above.

Moreover all this is completely befuddling all the weather models.
Specifically: The 2 leading weather models, US GFS and Euro ECMWF, have not been able to forecast rainfall in the #middleeast with even a modicum of accuracy for the past two months. Why? And why have there been large storms in Saudi every day for weeks?

What has changed? Image
I confess have no answers to these questions, but I am definitely very curious, hence this series.

Which brings me to today's forecasts. Starting with today's 10-day North African accumulated rainfall prognostications from the CMC, KMA, GFS and ECMWF models. ImageImageImageImage
Here's the CMC water vapour model over 10 days.

Frankly it seems implausible.

It looks like the Sahara is going to find itself fully covered with water vapour. But thing is, over time the CMC model is often getting this thing right. Also the others now say much the same.
Here are today's #HoA rainfall forecasts.

30th May 10-day rain (plus 12 day from KMA) forecasts for the #HornOfAfrica. The three models are now closer to each other than they have been for a couple of weeks.

#Sudan #SouthSudan #Ethiopia #Somalia #Somaliland #GERD ImageImageImageImage
And 3-Day rain forecasts to midnight Wednesday.

It seems the clear weather in the Horn will persist for a bit longer before the rains return to full strength.

#Sudan #SouthSudan #Ethiopia #Somalia #Somaliland #GERD ImageImageImage
Today's view over the #HornOfAfrica is wonderfully clear.

[Thanks to @NASA Modis Worldview, for its service to this planet.] Image
A selection of videos follow collected by @Arab_Storms from eyewitnesses of the extraordinary weather being seen at the moment in the Western Hemisphere.

This first one is from Algeria from Saturday evening.
This video showing an extraordinary lightning display is from the Prophet's City Medina, in Saudi yesterday.

It has been raining in Medina again today for most of the afternoon. .
And finally a video from Taif, which is just inland from Mecca where it has been raining and hailing again today. By now Taif's rainfall so far this year must be quite high.
May 30th, 10 day accumulated rain forecasts for the #MiddleEast from the GFS, ECMWF, CMC & KMA weather models.

@Arab_Storms
#ArabianStorms

#KSA #Yemen #Oman #Jordan #Sudan #Iran #Syria #GERD #Sudan #DesertRain

الله أعلم ImageImageImageImage
And 3 day forecasts from the same models to midnight Wednesday.

@Arab_Storms
#ArabianStorms

#KSA #Yemen #Oman #Sudan #Iran #Sudan #DesertRain #Makkah

الله أعلم ImageImageImageImage
And its a wrap....

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More from @althecat

Jun 7
A « Defund Gaza Genocide : Kick Big Polluters out » protest has just begun outside the #SB60 Mid- COP meeting of @UNFCCC COP Negotiators here in Bonn Germany.
The first speaker at this Gaza Solidarity action is from Gaza himself. Mohammed.
The protest was well attended with 50 odd partcipants and a similar number of observers and supporters.


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Read 19 tweets
Jun 5
The fatal flooding event yesterday in Southern Germany (5 confirmed dead so far) is a big wake up call to Europe, with echoes of the Ahr Valley flooding disaster of 2021. That incident coincided with the announcement of the EU Green New Deal in Brussels and this event is coinciding with the UNFCCC #SB60 mid-COP28 negotiations meeting in Bonn.

Picture: The Rhein River today in Bonn is running very high displacing the Geese mothers and their children.Image
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Thread follows with news links.

1/ bbc.com/news/articles/…
^^ previous story @BBC
@euronews

euronews.com/video/2024/06/…
Read 9 tweets
May 10
The story of what happened to Twitter/X according to @jack & including Nostr. & @nos.social which has journalism accelerator program and which is a collaboration with @Rabble who was there with @jack at the beginning,

I will post some screenshots. The account of what happened is astonishing. Shedding interesting new light on #TwitterFiles among many important issues related to Social Media censorship.

piratewires.com/p/interview-wi…
1/many THREAD

Twitter files related, @jack says the issue of censorship takedown was way broader than we knew and fully global. Image
@jack And even Australia was involved in seeking broad powers to take down content on Twitter. « Per country takedown capability was introduced in 2009 » Image
Read 15 tweets
May 4
The news that the TPLF are back in Alamata is chilling I hope the competing reports that the Govt FDRE has told them to withdraw are correct. According to what I have heard it is getting messy.

I posted 3 stories on Alamata and this one brings them together a bit. With rumours and disputed claims about a return of TPLF to Wolkait flying around the fear of more war coming is rising in the North of Ethiopia.

Private sources tell me that TPLF is overreaching, stirring up trouble again, and the absence of a clear public statement from the Govt clarifying precisely what is agreed or not at all helpful.

Worthy and unworthy Ethiopians via @abrennowabren.org/worthy-and-unw…
2/ this is the main story I wrote on Alamata back in 2022 after visiting immediately after the COHA Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was concluded in Pretoria.

It’s primarily a report about a huge mass grave on the right hand side on the Road heading north out of the city.

The story tells you what happened and what the locals in the town told me, and about the evidence they provided me of this as I left I did a more extensive interview with them into the broader story of what had happened in the city over the long periods of TPLF occupation. And leading up to the war breaking out in 2020

The idea that TPLF are back there again gives me chills. The mass grave which you can see in the story linked below is only a fraction of what the Alamata citizens have been through.

m.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211…
3/ This report from Arbren reports on the public source reports on what has recently happened.

The TPLF Military commanders remarks claiming that he was about to set up a Govt. Administration in Wolkait are the biggest problem here, but appear to for now just be just another typically brutal and reckless psyop.

That said the possibility of the TPLF rearming themselves, or being rearmed again by their allies with smuggled arms is definitely plausible and as a result the people of Alamata and Wollo to its south have lots of good reasons to be worried that this could escalate again.

abren.org/tplf-forces-pu…
Read 5 tweets
Mar 29
This is an interesting line of questioning here from Journalist @samhusseini which perhaps points to the substantive legal sophistry underlying the U.S. position on Gaza, in particular wrt the legality of wholesale slaughter y Israel of Gaza’s civilian population with U.S. supplied weapons .

@samhusseini tries to get answer from @StateDept’s Matthew Miller
(again) , he has been seeking an unambiguous answer repeatedly on this question as to « whether the U.S. govt accepts that the 4th Geneva Convention rules apply in the Gaza Conflict.
Meanwhile the rule of international law seems to be catching up on the Israeli-US « axis of sophistry » as we can see here in an new additional ICJ ruling on the Gaza Genocide complaint which coincides with the passage of a binding UNSC Resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict.
The most effective « Canary in the coal mine » in this drama from well before its initiation has been Francesca Albanese @FranceskAlbs.

Listen to her now.

Why? Because this crisis now stands on a knife edge. A window of hope for peace is now a little ajar, thanks to the combined weight of the UNSC ceasefire resolution and the progressing ICJ proceeding.

Albanese’s commitment, determination and enlightened investigation of the « Gaza War Palestine File » is peerless.

Her work began long before October 7th and this current obscene assault on the UN Charter, the rule of law and the « rules based order » which now engulfs the entire globe 🌍 in it’s implications.

This war, and Netanyahu’s impending attack on a concentrated starving population of well over 1 million souls is unprecedented, in its illegality as well as its possible consequences.

The entire world 🌍 is watching and praying and chanting and making offerings for peace. A peace that one man, an indicted financial and political criminal as well as a war criminal under investigation by the ICC over his role in both the settlements & the Great March of Return.

Read 5 tweets
Feb 22
An interesting report on Egypt 🇪🇬 ‘s response/practice when it comes to the shifting sands in international financial trading as a result of BRICS and the rise in the importance of the Yuan in particular for settling trade transactions.

At a practical level nations anticipating a loss in US dollar liquidity are increasingly hedging their bets on trade financing and broadening the quantity of trade in currencies other than the USD.

At a macro global level there is a high level of risk associated with these changes, principally because of the astronomical amount of US debt and deposits denominated in the USD.

The report shows that Egypt 🇪🇬 - a close U.S. ally is simultaneously seeking to be pragmatic about the threat this poses to its own economy by this expanding phenomena.

I have long considered that this « great unwinding » of the USD is the greatest threat to international economic conditions of my lifetime. I expect central bankers are having conniptions all over the planet at the moment.

Made in Egypt, sold in dollars goo.gl
Here is the original report I am referring to here. (See Quoted tweet).

What is happening now in global finance dwarfs the GFC of 2008 and its predecessor crises, the Asian Flue in the late 29th Century and the Dot Com Crash of the early 2000s.

The US Federal Reserve played a critical role in righting the great ship of global finance in those cases by providing liquidity. It is unclear whether they will be either willing or able to do so in the coming crises. Europe and China together need to consider how they can cooperate to address this coming crisis.

Critically the causes of this crisis are different and the War in Gaza is extremely important in relation to concerns about the Dollar and is driving the hoarding of USD liquidity by the super rich which is most probably one of the drivers of what is happening here.
P.S. India 🇮🇳 and OPEC likely also have an important role to play in addressing this coming crisis.

The simple truth is that USD Hegemony is unravelling and the impact of this is and will continue to be extremely destabilising globally in a manner unprecedented in the post WWII era.
Read 6 tweets

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