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Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Jun 30, 2021 • 22 tweets • 20 min read • Read on X

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A big day for rains in the #HornOfAfrica and particularly in the #Abbay Basin today, possibly the biggest this year. #GERD

Today's rainfall forecasts for the #HoA, #MiddleEast and #NorthAfrica follows.

Here we see a closeup of the storms building this afternoon over the Ethiopia Highlands, including Tigray and Eritrea. As well we can see explosive storms along the Red Sea Coast in Yemen and the Kingdom of #SaudiArabia.

This high resolution satellite image shows the entire Nile Basin this morning, with clouds well north over Sudan as the day began.

10-Day Rainfall forecasts for North Africa from June 30th through July 9th.

@ECMWF

48-hour rainfall forecasts (today and tomorrow from the same four models. @ECMWF, @NOAA's GFS, Canada's CMC and Korea's KMA.

And finally, long-range 16-day (GFS) and 12-Day (KMA forecasts for the wider region.

Today's big picture has two large storm complexes, that over the HoA and another over Western Europe. The second and third images show satellite views of the Western Europe storms this morning, one showing the size of the storm complex.

This image shows the relative sizes of the two storm complexes. The one over East Africa and the Arabian peninsula is 2.5x the size of the European area of disturbed weather.

Today's June 30th 10-day rainfall forecasts for the #Ethiopia and the Horn Of Africa including #Somalia, #Somaliland, eastern parts of #SouthSudan, south eastern parts of Sudan, #Djbouti and #Eritrea.

48 Hour forecasts (today and tomorrow) from the same three models. The official beginning of the big rainy season is tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1410316815843143685?s=20

... Threadfix ...

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1410316815843143685?s=20

This animation shows the same view again, this time showing the source of the water which brings the Eastern Africa Monsoon, the Arabian Sea.

10-Day June 30th, accumulated rain forecasts for the #MiddleEast from the GFS, ECMWF, CMC & KMA weather models.

#ArabianStorms

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

الله أعلم

48 Hour June 30th (today and tomorrow), accumulated rain forecasts for the #MiddleEast from the GFS, CMC & KMA weather models.

#ArabianStorms

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

الله أعلم

@Arab_Storms

And some eyewitness tweets from @Arab_Storms today of #ArabianStorms, the first from @SaudiArabia

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1410219385390837765?s=20

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1410215767967211522?s=20

And another also from #KSA

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1410215767967211522?s=20

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1410127184027652098?s=20

And one from #Oman of a thunderstorm.

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1410127184027652098?s=20

And as always the final forecasts today are long-range, June 30th, 16-day (GFS) and 12-day (KMA) accumulated rainfall forecasts for the Middle East.

الله أعلم

And for a rounded picture of the entire greater region. Zero hour simulation data from the GFS.

1. Precipitable water (potential rain + energy)
2. MLSP (Mean Sea Level Pressure)
3. 250Hpa (jet stream winds approx 11kms high) which appear to be the most useful parameters.

Finally today saw 49.6 degree celsius temperatures in British Columbia. Here you can see wild fire smoke mixing with a thunderstorm flare from space.

https://twitter.com/KyleTWN/status/1410101766515937280?s=20

And a view of the same storm from the ground. Pyro-cumulonimbus are clouds from thunderstorms supercharged by fires.

https://twitter.com/KyleTWN/status/1410101766515937280?s=20

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More from @althecat

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Dec 4

Excellent edition of @France24_en The debate.

If you listen/watch you will doubtless come to the conclusion that nobody knows for sure:

1. What exactly has happened in Syria, who backed who…

2. nor what the end game in this HTS launched renewed Civil War in Syria will look like.

3. But there are a lot of interesting theories.

Domino effect? Assad's allies stretched thin as Syrian rebels pounce • F... youtu.be/ZZN1nek4aTg?si… via @YouTube

From my perspective a useful rubric to analyse this is who benefits from this.

The penultimate French speaker - before the American who closed (presumably with a conventional foggy bottom perspective - I.E pro Israel when asked by Picard who is responsible gave I think the clearest answer.

“Ask the Americans” then pointed out that this development comes hot on top of the ceasefire in Lebanon which is far from secure.

The debate is exactly that and all speakers are experts in different aspects of the Syrian Question and the players. Which include.

- the rebel group whose lightning speed taking of Aleppo HTS/formerly Al Nusra over the last 4 days initiated this new crisis currently in the north of Syria but which HTS and other anti Assad forces in Syria appear to be intent on heading to Damascus to displace Assad.

Note: As you can see here (map) Damascus is just north of due east of the Israel-Lebanon border south east of Beirut & very close to Israel. (Check out the 1967 war & Angolan Heights to find out why)

Read 11 tweets

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Dec 3

The war crimes attorney, French, based in Lyon, who lodged the first war crimes complaint against Netanyahu was Giles Devers.

He recently died.

The complaint was based on the #GreatMarchOfReturn IDF operations during which 223 Palestinians were shot

The protests:

30 March 2018 – 27 December 2019
(1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks and 6 days)

…. peaceful. Young people gathered on the border and threw stones at snipers on defensive mounds above the protest area. A varying number of protestors were shot each day. including medics and members of the media.

The protests reached their zenith when Trump was present in Jerusalem for the opening of a U.S. embassy there during his first term as President.

Time magazine coverage time.com/longform/gaza-…

Forensic evidence was collected for the prosecution case by a team from Gaza’s Ministry of Health - and supervised by my colleague, Kiwi Journalist Julie Webb Pullman.

And this evidence and formed the substance of the first complaint laid by Advocat Giles Devers of “War Crimes” against Israel’s Govt and the IDF.

Read 9 tweets

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Nov 28

This is a must listen to @intifada podcast episode especially the first section off the top about the Lebanon ceasefire and the French pirouette wrt the meaning of the Rome statute. I.E declaring that it does not apply to Israel at least with respect to France’s obligation to Arrest Netanyahu being not the same as France’s obligation to arrest Vladimir Putin over war crimes in Ukraine.

That said the willingness of France to deploy boots on the ground into a theatre in which it suffered casualties in 1982 to a terror bombing does perhaps provide a small counter balance.

The analysis suggests that the concession by France was a Netanyahu condition for The ceasefire. Which is messy for sure and was - “euphemistically perhaps” - simultaneously brave and practical in achieving the ceasefire.

Knowing the propensity for people to go off the deep end with respect to hypocrisy, at sometimes. It can also be the right thing to do and in this occasion it arguably is.

It’s certainly spectacularly less hypocritical to the U.S. policy position here, in which it is effectively using the Israeli Genocide as a backdoor stalking horse to try to destroy the ICC and ICJ altogether. As this is its view long stated - American exceptionalism.

Read 5 tweets

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Nov 23

A wise head here in the media center just made a compelling counter argument to the practicality of the G77 and China walking away from the talks here.

And it’s essentially based in the recognition of rising geo-strategic entropy and the phenomena arising out of a lack any coherent global order. /1

The loud activist refrain here is “no deal is better than a bad deal.” But the question is what will the mean. in another conversation a person involved in finance talks just suggested that it’s looking very unlikely that there will be any agreement here simply because there is no strong leadership here. And in particular minimal representation here of strong G7 leadership. /2

By strong here I mean “financially strong.”

So the most likely outcome here now looks to almost certainly be no agreement on an NCQG and as a result it’s feeling rather gloomy now. /3

Read 14 tweets

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Nov 23

It’s a gray day here at #COP29Azerbaijan as the 29th Meeting of Nations to address what is now a #ClimateCrisis enters extra time, day one. THREAD.

Civil Society is preparing for a big day in the COP29 venue till the Closing Plenary is convened most likely fairly late Saturday. Here are letters sent to the largest Developing block of COP Nations G77+ China and several developed world nations last night.

This came after new texts were released on the Core remaining issues in this Climate Summit:

Finance - specifically the NCQG - the draft text contained the first number placed on the table 250 Billion, which is not even an inflation adjusted upgrade on the 100 Billion a year in finance agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

See: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhage…

https://twitter.com/rls_klima/status/1860020380876075167

The open letters to the developed and developing world from #COP29 Civil Society have been endorsed by a huge number of organisations globally.

And will underpin a day of action today at the COP29 Venue.

https://twitter.com/rls_klima/status/1860020380876075167

Read 7 tweets

Alastair Thompson

@althecat

Nov 22

Final official day of #COP29Azerbaijan

The city is remarkably like Wellington weather wise swinging from day to day and occasionally lovely on a good day.

But the NCQG negotiations are still pretty much deadlocked on the most important issue here, Finance, with no numbers on the table yet. And talks still stuck on many of the same issues they were stuck on at the beginning.

I had an opportunity to speak the Egyptian Ambassador as I was leaving who is in a “Pair” appointed by the Presidency with the Australian Ambassador takes to try to get an agreement on the NCQG. He was optimistic about a realistic NCQG figure being eventually offered by Developed Nations to Developing Nations. But did not expect this to come until the very end.

And Negotiations will therefore continue today. This video was at the venue last night - Birds seem to have a commute past the venue to where they sleep.

Developed Nations want some nations that have developed since the process begun, Annex 2 Nations, to be part of the contributor base. The two most prominent of these China and Saudi Arabia say they are already contributing voluntarily and apparently not keen to be brought into the official NCQG base - and this remains an obstacle.

The Ambassador did not think their position on this will change.