Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Sep 25, 2021 24 tweets 14 min read Read on X
Rains over the #HornOfAfrica are back to monsoon level, and the heavier rains are forecast to remain for at least a fortnight.

This week's rainfall forecasts for #HornOfAfrica, #NorthAfrica and the #MiddleEast follow.
Today's forecasts big picture is of the view from above of North Africa, The Middle East, The Horn of Africa India and southern parts of Europe and Central Asia.

Ethiopia's @DemekeHasen has just started speaking to the #UNGA on behalf of the peoples of Ethiopia. Image
Here's a picture of Ethiopia's Deputy PM and Foreign Affairs Minister @DemekeHasen. Image
You can watch the video of his address here >>
Here's a picture of the Ethiopian delegation. Image
#UNGA #UNGAEthiopiaCrisis

Well that statement from @DemekeHassan was great. Concise, clear and dignified. I hope it was heard.

Now, back to the rain. Here's a picture of North Africa from this evening. Note the pattern of rain extending deep into the deserts of Sudan and KSA. Image
Here we have four model forecasts for the next 10 days of rain. Rain is forecast over the Sahel and nearly all of the #HornOfAfrica during this period. This is due to a late season monsoon burst which is currently building over India. ImageImageImageImage
Here we see 48 hour rainfall forecasts from the same four models, the CMC (Canada), GFS (US), KMA (Korea) and ACG (Australia). ImageImageImageImage
And finally, here are the two longer range models, which include the full impact of the monsoon burst. F
1. The GFS 16 day model.
2. The KMA 12 day model. ImageImage
This satellite image, also today, includes an important new feature which appeared this morning in the top right, a small area of intense convection over the Northern Arabian Sea south of Pakistan. Image
Here we have three 10 day rainfall forecasts for the Horn covering Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, southern parts of Sudan, eastern parts of South Sudan and South Western parts of Yemen.

In three of these forecasts the rainfall covers almost the entire region. ImageImageImageImage
And here we have three 48 hour forecasts from the ECM (EU), GFS (US) and KMA (Korean) models. ImageImageImage
This is a closeup animation, 24 hours, of the area of disturbance in the Arabian Sea which was briefly designated as an area of interest by the global cyclone monitoring network (the purple line).
This morning when this appeared I posted a small thread about this. And between midnight and 6am (UTC) the GFS global weather model significantly adjusted its forecast on the basis of its appearance.
This is the most important tweet in that thread. And it represents the initial re calibration of the GFS model based on this observation. As this is long range and cyclones are very unpredictable it will likely change, but so far the forecast holds.
Here's an older view of the same data but looking at it from an Indian Ocean wide view.

These plots show precipitable water [airborne water vapour]. B ecause water has mass, in physics terms this roughly speaking equals energy/potential for rain].
This was before that pop up storm appeared. After the pop up storm appeared the model started predicting cyclones. Two of them.
These two cyclones are highly speculative at this stage. And they appear to arise after the Cyclone Gulab weather system, which is currently over the Bay of Bengal crosses India and emerges into the Arabian Sea.
Here's a picture Cyclone Gulab's forecast track this evening. Image
Which brings us to the rainfall forecasts for the Middle East. First we have four 10 day rainfall forecasts.

Of these only the GFS and CMC models have forecasted landfalling cyclones. ImageImageImageImage
Next four 48 hour forecasts, which show all show relatively minor rain over the Arabian Peninsula in the short term. ImageImageImageImage
And finally we have four long range forecasts.

1. KMA 12-Day
2. GEFS (US ensemble) 16 Day
3. EPS (EU ensemble) 15 Day
4. GFS 16-Day (same as the animations earlier) ImageImageImageImage
At this point talk of cyclones is highly speculative as their existence is still some time away. I will be monitoring this closely and posting the latest data and observations.
That said the overall pattern, from an energy perspective is unlikely to alter significantly in magnitude and there is a lot of water heading towards East Africa.

Where that arrives and in what form is yet to be determined. But something is going to happen.

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More from @althecat

Sep 10
At this point following the Qatar obscenity Israel is now breaking the internet and the world.

something decisive is needed to break Israel - a peaceful action that will work and show the world that justice still exists and that peace is possible.
A wise friend proposed a brilliant idea. Every nation on earth which is willing and able should send a frigate to the Mediterranean Sea and take a message to Israel that it cannot ignore.
The foundations of the United Nations itself are now crumbling under the weight of the Gaza Obscenity and nations like Britain that seem to have been turned are facing protest and resistance of epic proportions from their citizens.

The center cannot hold.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 4
I’ll be posting videos and news here on Twitter from the flotilla which is about to depart from Majorca for Tunis on the first leg of the journey to Gaza.
More boats are expected to join the flotilla from Europe and North Africa along the way as it moves west across the Mediterranean. @GretaThunberg is making the voyage again and Israel will not be able to contain or stop this flotilla most likely. And definitely not the publicity.
This first video is of a wind squall hitting one of the boats as it departs Barcelona.
Read 13 tweets
Aug 10
Netanyahu has proposed a pathway to end the war in Gaza under pressure primarily from the U.S. UK, France & Germany. Spain and Ireland and several other European nations & the European Commission.

LIVE: PM Netanyahu Holds a Press conference youtube.com/live/1ebXvF9MO…
The @israelipm sounds defeated. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end. The deal being offered to Gaza is far from perfect but it sounds workable in Netanyahus outline.
@IsraeliPM Whether it will be approved by Hamas however is unclear and rather complicated - as it’s unclear who inside Gaza would be in a position to respond to the offer. Many of Hamas’s fighters may prefer to die as martyrs also than to agree to any deal.
Read 5 tweets
Jul 25
Guess who has the most to lose if/when @realDonaldTrump discovers he’s now a lame duck President.

He is now so deep under water both in polling and with his base that it’s very hard to imagine him bouncing back.
I’ll answer my question shortly buts it’s well worth pondering…. In the meantime consider this.

Trump is now a laughing stock. And not only is everyone in America now laughing at him. But he has also been abandoned by his base and his party.
The bonfire of vanity that belongs to Donald Trump is iridescent, a signal to the world that his presidency has ended before it even started.
Read 7 tweets
Jul 25
This is pathetic from @realDonaldTrump he’s lashing out like an angry teenager. Jerome Powell says he’s included a the costs of a building that was completed years ago in his very public attack on the FED Chair.
Trump has completely lost the plot. The single most damaging thing that he could do to undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar (which he publicly claims to want to deflate and there by make all Americans poorer - is to attack the Federal Reserve and the SEC.
@realDonaldTrump Trump is setting fire to the dollar to distract from his Epstein mess what a complete baby.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 2
I attended the Bonn climate talks. They were very disappointing to everyone. The elephant in the room was (of course) the U.S. decision to withdraw from the talks altogether.

open.spotify.com/episode/3YV0SU…
Unfortunately.. perhaps intentionally in advance of the continuation of climate talks regardless of #US_Disintigration the talks were also very sparsely attended particularly by activists and NGOs. The reason for this was @elonmusk destroying @-USAID.
@elonmusk As you can see the USAID Twitter account is now dead - deleted which is an appalling act of vandalism executed by Elon and his tech-bro team of teenagers.
Read 13 tweets

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