Storm Barra has brought rain to all the United Kingdom.
Here's an animation of the the storm arriving overnight yesterday and yesterday morning.
As storms go. Storm Barra looks pretty cool from a satellite vantage point.
Similar image with the outlines of Ireland and the UK for orientation.
A 12 hour view of the Storm Barra's leading edge crossing Ireland and the UK.
A wider angle view, on the right you can see a second storm of similar scale over Greece, the Aegean Sea and Western Turkey.
And finally a view of the two storms, both of which are caused by atmospheric rivers originating in the tropical Atlantic.
Here's a different view,a forecast for the next 10 days (from late yesterday) of atmospheric water. As you can see Storm Bara is not particularly wet compared to some of the water masses which are incoming.
Over Libya at the beginning you can see the origins of 2nd storm.
This view, also 10 days, shows us where this water is coming from, West Africa and Red Sea from the look of things.
Finally what does the coming fortnight look like, and the answer is that through to Christmas this is going to be fairly relentless, especially in Ireland and the UK.
At the end of that forecast you can see a lot of water over the Eastern Med. and the Levant. And according to the current forecast, that water will bring rain/snow, lots of it to Turkey and Greece but not only, also rain to the Meditranean Coast, Israel, Syria Jordan & Nth KSA.
US State Dept spokesman Ned Price @StateDeptSpox briefed yesterday on the WFP suspension of aid in Dessie, and new travel plans for Feltman to visit UAE & Turkey to discourage them from supporting Ethiopia and also Egypt. state.gov/briefings/depa… (Timestamp 39:20 in the video).
"We strongly condemn.. incidents and reiterate calls to all parties to the conflict to respect and protect humanitarian relief ... It is prohibited to attack, destroy, misappropriate or loot relief supplies, installations, materials, units or vehicles." - UN SPOX @StephDujarric
This final paragraph from the UN readout is striking in that it is - to my recollection - the first statement of this kind delivered about the looking of relief supplies and trucks in Ethiopia.
Dear @UN_Spokesperson, you and the UN's special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila, ought to be aware that there are no ENDF forces inside Tigray at present and haven't been since the humanitarian ceasefire in July.
@UN_Spokesperson If the UN and the UN's special representative wants to condemn something then condemn what is happening by name, i.e. the sexual violence being committed by the TPLF in territories they have been occupying for the past five months.
@UN_Spokesperson It is possible that there is also sexual violence being committed by TPLF forces in Tigray against their own women, and against Eritrean refugees in their territory, but this is not something that the Ethiopian Govt. has any ability to police.
Senator Coons tells yet another version of his garbled “Call with @AbiyAhmedAli” before the war story, this time claiming he rang Abiy in the “window” between the attack and the launch of the counter offensive.
This was a very small window as the counter offensive began immediately. If not on Nov 4th definitely by the 5th.
By then the TPLF’s information operations -which @Chriscoons wittingly or unwittingly aided by signing a press release on 31st October - were underway.
And a wider view. Here we can see that the official La Nina weather pattern (supposed to bring dry weather to NZ and Aus) isn't playing like it used to.
And here is a fairly ominous 16-day forecast for atmospheric water in the Southern Hemisphere, remember that the Southern Hemisphere summer is just starting. The current pattern for tropical water flows over NZ is forecast to hold for a week.
Senator @ChrisCoons keeps changing the story and context of his alleged conversation with PM Abiy before the war began. In this new Oped for @ForeignPolicy his explanation is even more contorted than before - and really needs some unpacking. foreignaffairs.com/articles/ethio…
The issue of this alleged call arose initially due to the reporting of the error prone @nytimes reporter Declan Walsh. He published a report in which he claimed that Coons had spoken to Abiy before the war started, warning him not to start a war.
@nytimes This is important because contrary to @nytimes@reuters, @ap, @AFP and numerous other western media outlets the war which began in November 2020 was started by the TPLF in a coordinated surprise attack on the ENDF in which 1000s of ENDF troops and officers were killed.
A closeup of Ethiopia's #GERD and #Sudan's Rosieres dams.
And a close up of the upper reaches of the White Nile showing Lake Albert and Lake Kyoga which are downstream from the Lake Victoria outlet of the White Nile at Jinja.