Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Jul 2, 2021 18 tweets 21 min read Read on X
Day three of official #GERD filling today in Ethiopia. And a gap in the clouds this morning reveals the GERD lake on the #Abbay river.

Today's #HornOfAfrica, #NorthAfrica and #MiddleEast rainfall forecasts follow.
Here we zoom out a little, the source of the #Abbay/#BlueNile Lake Tana takes pride of place. You can see the #GERD lake in the bottom left hand corner.

These images are from the @NASA Modis Worldview service. Also below a picture of the #GERD from back in January.
Here's today's big picture as ever of the great Sahara Desert. You can see today's #ArabianStorms starting up bottom right, and top left a new rain front coming into Western Europe where the 2021 #EuropeBigWet continues to bring rain and unseasonably mild temperatures.
Today's 10-Day Rainfall forecasts for North Africa from July 2nd through July 11th.

[NOTE: The widespread rainfall in the CMC forecast for Yemen is a new feature and supported in the long-range GFS forecast.]
48-hour rainfall forecasts (today and tomorrow from the same four models: the Euro @ECMWF, U.S. @NOAA's GFS, Canada's CMC and Korea's KMA models.

In all forecasts short and long range we now see rainfall pushing deep into northern areas in the Sahel.
Finally, long-range 16-day (GFS) &12-Day (KMA forecasts for the wider region. I have included a closeup from the long-range GFS forecast. The extent of rainfall in the Western Sahara now shown by the GFS is similar to that in the much more #desertrain bullish CMC and KMA models
Here's a six hour animation of rain building today over Ethiopia running from 9.30am GMT. Its not quite as strong as the past two days but these storms tend to build until evening and then continue deep into the night.
Here we see the source of the water which is powering the East Africa Monsoon rains, streams of airborn moisture caused by convective storms over the Arabian Sea, India, the Bay of Bengal and South East Asia.
This forecast map shows the high altitude winds which guide these aerial water flows. The coloured areas show faster wind speeds.
Today's July 2nd 10-day rainfall forecasts (+1 12 day forecast from KMA) for #Ethiopia and the #HornOfAfrica including #Somalia, #Somaliland, eastern parts of #SouthSudan, south eastern parts of Sudan, #Djbouti and #Eritrea. All model forecasts are now both strong and stable.
48 Hour forecasts (today and tomorrow) from the same three models. The big rainy season is now underway.

The longer-range forecasts now show significant rain over nearly all of #Ethiopia, and heavy rain in war-torn Tigray.
Today's #ArabianStorms coming to life in Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
10-Day July 2nd, 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 July 2nd (today and tomorrow), accumulated rain forecasts for the #MiddleEast from the GFS, ACG, CMC & KMA weather models.

#ArabianStorms

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

الله أعلم
As always the final rainfall forecasts are long range July 1st, 16-day (GFS) and 12-day (KMA) accumulated rainfall forecasts for the Middle East.

This level of rainfall in Yemen is a first for the GFS model so far in the 2021 spring-summer.
الله أعلم
& a rounded picture of the hemisphere. Zero hour simulation data from the GFS.

1. Precipitable water PWAT anomaly
2. PWAT (potential rain + energy)
3. MLSP (Mean Sea Level Pressure)
4. 250Hpa (jet stream winds approx 11kms high)

[Note the persistent PWAT anomaly over Sudan.]
/ENDS

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More from @althecat

Jul 21
THREAD: Some thoughts on October 7th and the importance of their being global transparency over what we know about what really happened on that terrible day.

1/ This (see screenshots in the first few posts in this thread) is one of the most important pieces of conflict related journalism published in recent years.

It relates to the orders given to soldiers on October 7th to fire on any vehicle seeking to return to the Gaza Strip to prevent the taking of hostages and was published on July 7th, 10 months later in Haaretz.Image
2/ As @IsraeliPM Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address congress it is vital that the public in the US, Israel and globally is fully aware of what exactly happened on October 7th in Gaza. Image
3/ The account in this story published by Haaretz is at this time still behind a paywall and it has therefore not been read by the very large number of people who ought to have done so. I have not seen very many reports containing the detail of this report elsewhere though I presume there are many.

A copy of the report can be found however on here >> Archive.is
archive.md/zqUntImage
Read 16 tweets
Jul 8
OK so clearly #HurricaneBeryl is not the same as #HurricaneHarvey. But there are some striking similarities in terms of what has made it so much more persistent than either forecast or as modeled.

This thread is going to look at this issue a bit more deeply.
- The overall cloud mass of the #HurricaneBeryl thunderstorm complex proved much more resilient than expected once it came over land. Why?
- Also Like #Harvey Beryl did slow down after making landfall and continued to spin over land. Why?
- I think the answer to both questions relates to the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Like Harvey back in 2017, Beryl has been fueled by a constant stream of warm wet atmospheric flows of energy off of the Gulf of Mexico.
- This is obvious in part simply from observing the astonishing expansion of the cloud field after #Beryl made landfall early this morning.

A clue to understanding this can be found in looking at the the astonishing growth progression of #HurricaneBeryl's cloud field over landafter Beryl strengthened and formed itself into a Hurricane in the period after making landfall south of Houston.

Over the course of the rest of the morning you can see in these images how much the wind field expanded.
Like Harvey #Beryl also grew and strengthened itself by feeding off of the gulf of mexico, specifically the area between the Texas coastline and what looks like the outer boundary of the convection field which expanded extremely strongly to the north.

The only source for all this additional atmospheric moisture can be the oceanic convection which took place in what is a fairly clearly bounded 136,000 km2 area of ocean which as you can see in this animation is very closely bound to the rest of the circulation.

This is a much much larger area than the area of active rainfall which settled over the city and metropolis of Houston for the morning and which is finally starting to move off to the north now.
This version of the graphic shows the comparative sizes of the area of water which is responsible for the astonitising growth of post landfall #HurricaneBeryl - and the area of the storm that remained over the ocean and which is almost certainly responsible for both why this storm was so persistent and why it (like Harvey) slowed down after coming ashore.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 8
#HurricaneBerylis not expected to give up lightly as it moves onshore and turns north eastward over Texas and then heads north east across the great planes towards the great lakes.

Typically we expect hurricanes to weaken rapidly over land - especially wind wise. But #Berylis not forecast to behave as normal - probably because like Harvey, its tail over the Gulf is keeping it fueled. - the currently forecast pattern from Fox News's exclusive model shown in these images was present in some of the simulations of Beryl after it crossed the Yucutan a couple of days ago.

To my mind questions ought to be asked about the accuracy of the forecasting for this storm, as - like the last super destructive Texas Hurricane, Harvey in 2017 [] Beryl is proving to be a LOT more destructive in its impacts than initially forecast.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane…Image
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The final image in this sequence of screenshots of Fox Weather Graphics is worth drawing attention to as it shows how much broader the impacts of this hurricane are expected to be as it moves across the great planes roughly speaking heading up the Mississippi river, and continuing to dump potential flooding rain as it goes.Image
This image shows the forecast expected severe weather threat from the remnants of #HurricaneBeryl in Arkansas and Missouri up as far as Saint Louis. Image
Read 6 tweets
Jul 8
ALERT: High Target News Environment in play - numerous consequential news events with global implications.

1. British elections - (Thursday July 4th-Friday July 5th): Delivering an unprecedented landslide win to the left's @UKLabour Party + strong showings for the Liberals and Greens . The UK Chancellor @RachelReevesMP will shortly set out her economic policy in a speech.

2. French elections (Sunday July 7th) deliver a remarkable 2nd big win for the left in politics in France - dashing the hopes of Marine le Pen's hard right wing "Rassemblement National" of first parliamentary victory

3. Overnight (7th-8th July): an unprecedented huge Hurricane , #Hurricane Beryl - makes landfall in Houston as a Category 1 Hurricane, its main threat to the epicenter of the global fossil fuel industry will be flooding. It is still night in Houston at present.
You can watch the new UK Chancellor's speech live here now >> youtube.com/live/oJUvTVdTM…
English language coverage of the French Election from @France24_en can be watched here >>
Read 5 tweets
Jul 1
Hmmmmmm…. Why is the audio of the @youtube version of the UNSG office daily briefing for 1st July missing sound from 5:24 to 6:07?

Afghanistan, Lebanon, Myanmar & other topics - Daily Press Briefing (1 J... via @YouTube

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The content of this portion is available as it is simply a quote from written remarks of UNSG @antonioguterres made to a meeting in Austria. But the missing YouTube audio is unprecedented in my experience and hard to explain.
Video from the un platform is here. webtv.un.org/en/asset/k12/k…
Read 10 tweets
Jun 23
Another day. Another Israeli
war crime.

Intense bombing by Israeli forces on Gaza continues and kills at least 3... via @YouTube
This report also addresses the widening rift between Israeli PM Netanyahu and the U.S. Government. True to form Netanyahu is showing no sign of backing down. But this tweet showing former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant leaving on a U.S. flight for the U.S. speaks volumes in this very intense moment.

Amidst continued bombing of Rafah, Israeli forces are resuming strikes i... via @YouTube
And here from two days ago more Margaret Brennan context on the rupture in relations between the @WhiteHouse and @IsraeliPM

Israel has not come close to destroying Hamas, U.S. official says via @YouTube
Read 7 tweets

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