Well its hard to know where to begin with today's #MiddleEast and #HornOfAfrica rainfall forecasts.
The action is now further north, and west. Here we see the consequences of the first phase of what appears to be becoming a continuous #WesternSaharaPlume.
An bit of a battle us underway between a high pressure system over Northern Erope and the plume which is entering at the bottom left in this image of Jetstream level 250Hpa 11km high winds.
While the model forecasts remain optimistic that an orderly jetstream may eventually appear, so far this has not happened. And in the meantime these winds are picking up moisture in the tropics and taking it in large quantities to places where its not expected.
Same animation time scale but this time of precipitable water. This is showing little sign of of becoming less unruly within the forecast time frame. And as water has significantly more mass/inertia than air, this could explain differences between forecast and observed weather.
One thing is going according to the script however. Today is the first day of the Indian subcontinent monsoon season and the forecasts show significant rainfall across all of India over the next 12 days.
The Atlantic Hurricane season officially begins today too and we have our first long range model prognostication. A storm in one of the favoured spots for formation, off the coast of Nicaragua, heading north.
At this range though this is hugely speculative.
Here's what the picture looked like last night.
In the east storms once again over the Red sea and around Medina. And in the west the #WesternSaharaPlume strengthening.
This morning the #WesternSaharaPlume is running hot bringing rain across Algeria, Spain & the Med. Rain is now forecast for where I am in Western France tonight and it looks like the rest of Western Europe will return to unseasonably wet conditions soon after.
Here are two more weather observations from this morning via @Meteoblue, the animations as always are from @zoom_earth
Here's a close up of the plume. The Eastern visible edge is moving at 100kph. On the western side clouds and storms are moving into France at 20-30kph.
This GEFS ensemble 15 day animation models what is expected to follow. And this means a lot more rain. France's rivers are already running fairly high as are those in the east.
The result is water water everywhere. Albeit of the kind you can drink.
Again this is a 16 day forecast from the GEFS ensemble model.
Meanwhile in Eastern Africa the #EastAfricaPlume which has resulted in rain in northern #Sudan#Egypt and #SaudiArabia has stopped but a new one may well be developing over Chad. You need to look closely as the cloud signals are fairly minor at the moment.
Wile the monsoon itself is marching westwards. Higher altitude winds - those that appear to be carrying these water streams - produced by the storm activity in Chad - are moving east, and turn north over #Sudan. Admittedly this is just a guess as to what is going on.
And finally the long range rainfall forecasts.....
Here are today's June 1st North Africa accumulated forecasts, in descending order of #DesertRain intensity. The CMC forecast is now consistently showing 1mm of rain on average per day over a large portion of the Western Sahara.
A view of Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa from this morning from @NASA's Modis satellite.
1 June 10-day rain (+ 12 day KMA) forecasts for the #HornOfAfrica. The intensity of rain in the 12 day KMA forecast looks like what the Blue Nile historically delivers.
A selection of storm videos from around the world follow. The first from New Zealand, my home, where a freakish tropical moisture driven storm came close to causing significantly more catastrophic damage than what you see here.
And our final regular accumulated rainfall forecasts for today, ultra long-range forecasts from the GFS & its ensemble counterpart GEFS (16 Day) and the KMA (12 Day) models.
Rains in Ethiopia and adjacent East African parts of the the Nile watersheds have been pumping today. Also across Somalia and Somali land, Sudan, South Sudan and south into areas west of Uganda feeding into Lake Victoria.
Today's rainfall forecasts follow with commentary.
The image above from @NASA Modis shows the upper Nile Basin and areas to the west this morning.
This animation below shows the same area this evening. Storms are once again dancing off the coast of Jeddah, rain surrounds Medina and clouds are gathering over Chad and Sudan.
Here's a close up of the cloud formation over Chad and Sudan today. If you look closely you can see two layers moving in different directions. Some clouds aligning with the westward motion of the monsoon and others, lighter in colour moving north east.
I'd be interested in some computer modellers views of this. The experience of those of us with weather model powered interfaces in our hands have come to realise that a technology that was formerly fairly reliable in Europe isn't really coping.
I have a live example here in Bretagne which is about to play out in real time. This is what my phone says. Rain is coming in 8 hours time. Lowish probability and only lasts four hours.
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.
Upstream flow gauges in Temuka, Rangitata, Rakaia & Waimakariri appear to be peaking or in the case of the Waimakariri close to peaking.
Meanwhile the official ECAN alerts page seems to not be freaking out, so that's all good >> ecan.govt.nz/home/flood-war….
Steady as she flows.
"Breakouts" in the Ashburton vicinity & inland, are the major concern at present. But whatever "breakouts" are they sound a lot less alarming than floods and evacuations.
Also no alarm around the major rivers, yet. Also good.
The remaining concern will be river mouth flood/tide collisions. High tide timing today is around 6.30am near Timaru, 7.50am at the Rakaia and around 8.30am in Christchuch and at the Waimakariri river mouth.
Here is a wider view. This will definitely continue through a fair bit of the night. Question is now how long will it continue tomorrow? The forecast models showed the plume you see coming in from the right sort of petering out and disengaging and tracking north.
NOTE: This is not an official forecast. But it is alarming. It seems that that peculiar cloud formation is special in a number of rather alarming ways. [Image: @NOAA's GFS model forecast, latest run.]