Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Dec 14, 2021 48 tweets 20 min read Read on X
Extreme weather in the Nth Hemisphere due to high levels of atmospheric water in 2021 look set to be maintained into 2022. Atmospheric river activity continues to have significant consequences now, and in the forecasts.

New #OurChangingClimate thread.
The satellite animation above shows the weather system that produced the devastating tornadoes on Friday and Saturday in the United States.

This 16 day simulation shows a @NOAA GFS PWAT (atmospheric river) forecast beginning 12th December, which shows extreme is far from over.
The consequences of this ongoing collision between tropical moisture and winter is set to bring much more precipitation through to New Year, and a very white Christmas in the North East US.
In the forecast above there is also a lot of rainfall in the south. This plot (which shows the Cape Index) suggests conditions may persist for extreme weather, thunderstorms/tornadoes for a bit longer, especially in Texas.
This animation shows the atmospheric river which produced the tornadoes in Kentucky arriving in Europe over night.
This view shows the next 16 days in the North East Atlantic, the inclement weather in the UK and Ireland (which has led to transport, flooding & power outages) looks set to continue.
If we zoom out we can see the underlying cause persistent tropical atmospheric rivers, some of which are colossal through to the beginning of 2022 at least.
Here we can see what is likely part of the cause, sea surface temperature anomalies [Src. ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean…] compared to climate trends) in the North Atlantic, North Pacific and South Pacific (affecting NZ) are already very high, not withstanding a significant La Nina.
The ENSO oscillation reports from @NOAA provide all the details of current expert thinking on where this is likely to go >> [cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analy…], but so far, the usual impact in Australasia/Oceania are not yet remotely drought like, though this may come.
What this ^^ forecast tells us is that by July 2022 ENSO is expected to be back to neutral for the northern hemisphere spring - likely followed by an (wet) El Nino (same pattern as in 2021).
The remainder of this thread looks at current weather and forecasts in:
- Sth Pacific (NZ and Australia) - Cyclone Ruby
- W. Pacific - Cyclone Ria (with more to come)
- Pacific NW (lots of early snow)
- Madagascar (where it's raining)
- ME & Sahara
It's cyclone season in the Pacific, and it has started. Cyclone Ruby has formed and is heading south now, thankfully missing NZ, but the flooding threat to NZ broadly appears to be increasingly serious.

Here's a 16 day PWAT forecast for the South Pacific.
Large scale atmospheric moisture simulations are remarkably accurate over fairly long periods as shown in this rain forecast (Dec. 8) which warned about flooding which is now underway in NZ's North. You can also see a version of what is now Cyclone Ruby.
This is Cyclone Ruby.

Historically, cyclones very rarely maintain cyclonic strength by the time they reach NZ, but with high SSTs, this early cyclone, & the large low pressure storm in the previous PWAT forecast, one wonders if this can be seen as a forerunner for change.
Ruby has weakened a lot after running directly over New Caledonia, and is not currently forecast to strengthen again, but we shall see. nzherald.co.nz/nz/tropical-cy…
This view of Cyclone Ruby shows how it is embedded in a massive area of tropical moisture. Because its a cyclone it is now strengthening this atmospheric water flow with its outflows.
Here's a 16 day MLSP model run from the GFS model, the multiple low systems complex over NZ (caused by the atmospheric river/lake) appears here to absorb Ruby. But Kiwis need to watch the two more tropical low systems forming before NY.
Finally in this part of the thread, here's a 10 day rainfall forecast for NZ. The impact of Ruby can be seen at the beginning in the Bay of Plenty, but this shows flood risk level rainfall in several other places including Canterbury.
The next part of this thread looks at the West Pacific and Cyclone Rai, which appears to be just the first of several very late season cyclones/typhoons in East Asia.

Here we see Ria. Like Ruby, Ria is embedded in a massive area of atmospheric moisture providing her with fuel.
Here we have a 16 day long range simulation forecast for the West Pacific, it shows two major storms Ria - a very late South China Sea Cyclone crossing the Philippines, followed by the formation of a second storm which heads north towards Japan and then dissipates.
[For a bit of additional background, last week' thread last week looked at the West Pacific here >> ]
The NE Pacific (Pacific North West of the US) was also addressed in last week's thread and as we saw earlier the North Pacific is also still very warm, and producing lots of atmospheric water.
The persistent pattern reported on last time has broken, but what remains is still very wet, and quite similar to what we can see in the North Atlantic.
To cut to the chase, the result of this is a lot of snow settling in the North West, as well as the North East. The first image shows North American snow depth as of today, while the second one shows it as of December 30th.
And here we see just the North West, today and in 16 days time. The third image shows the depth of North Western US snow on Christmas Eve. Early travel to ski resorts may be advisable.
I have two views of the atmospheric moisture/energy dynamics that deliver all this snow. Firstly a view of the North American Continent as a whole.
Our second view gives us a view of the the Tropical Eastern Pacific, where the ENSO originates. Here we can also see several atmospheric rivers sweeping the West Coast. The last one is the strongest and delivers a lot of moisture to most of California.
We now move to Southern Africa for another update on a weather pattern which was forecast to bring rain to drought stricken Madagascar.
This is the full EU produced graphic which shows the worst affected area in the South. The next few tweets show the satellite presentation of the arrival of the forecast rains, first forecast here on November 29th.
December 9th-10th
December 10th-11th
December 11th-12th [there was a bit of break in the pattern on the morning of the 11th]
December 12th-13th
And finally December 13th-14th. Making that five days of rain - mostly in the form of thunderstorms - in some of of the most drought affected areas of Madagascar.
Again here we have two forward looking views of the water/energy dynamics which have been producing these much needed rains - and which suggest it will continue, even as the weather pattern changes for a bit. Here we see the West African monsoon helping.
And here we see a full disc view of the South Indian Ocean which contains quite a few cyclones. The storms so far have been caused by the Easterly winds which are driven by high pressure systems in the south of the Ocean.
This high pressure feature appears to be fairly resilient as you can see here in a view of the Sea Level Pressure data for the same period.
If we add all this together we get a 10 day rainfall forecast through to Christmas for the Island which forecasts the rain continuing, albeit with lighter rain in the most southerly and most extreme drought affected areas.
Which brings us to our final segment, which looks at the Middle East and the Sahara water transport feature we noticed a week ago, which suggested the possibility of some more #DesertRain in the Middle East.
This Amazon to Middle East water transport feature has persisted now for several weeks, and according to @meteoblue's satellite rainfall radar is producing rainfall in the heart of the Sahara and the Northern Gulf.
Here's an updated 24 hour animation of this persistent pattern.
A 16 day forecast of Middle Eastern Rain from the @NOAA GFS model. This forecast shows minor amounts of rain in Israel, Iraq, Jordan and the Red Sea/Med Coasts as well as more significant quantities of rain/snow in Lebanon, Turkey and Iran. And even a bit of rain in Ethiopia.
Here's a water/energy PWAT simulation of this which varies at a details level from the GFS version of the same phenomena which follows.
Here's the GFS version, which is also six days longer, and provides an indication atmospheric water over the ME may linger for a while.
Here we have three 10 day rainfall forecasts for the area. The rainfall here in Iraq is insufficient to have any real impact, but if it continues, it would be very welcome as the drought in the southern Euphrates area is very acute.
And here are the two longer range model forecasts. The GFS (left) 16 days and the KMA (right) 12-days
/ends

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More from @althecat

Jun 7
A « Defund Gaza Genocide : Kick Big Polluters out » protest has just begun outside the #SB60 Mid- COP meeting of @UNFCCC COP Negotiators here in Bonn Germany.
The first speaker at this Gaza Solidarity action is from Gaza himself. Mohammed.
The protest was well attended with 50 odd partcipants and a similar number of observers and supporters.


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Jun 5
The fatal flooding event yesterday in Southern Germany (5 confirmed dead so far) is a big wake up call to Europe, with echoes of the Ahr Valley flooding disaster of 2021. That incident coincided with the announcement of the EU Green New Deal in Brussels and this event is coinciding with the UNFCCC #SB60 mid-COP28 negotiations meeting in Bonn.

Picture: The Rhein River today in Bonn is running very high displacing the Geese mothers and their children.Image
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Thread follows with news links.

1/ bbc.com/news/articles/…
^^ previous story @BBC
@euronews

euronews.com/video/2024/06/…
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May 10
The story of what happened to Twitter/X according to @jack & including Nostr. & @nos.social which has journalism accelerator program and which is a collaboration with @Rabble who was there with @jack at the beginning,

I will post some screenshots. The account of what happened is astonishing. Shedding interesting new light on #TwitterFiles among many important issues related to Social Media censorship.

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1/many THREAD

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May 4
The news that the TPLF are back in Alamata is chilling I hope the competing reports that the Govt FDRE has told them to withdraw are correct. According to what I have heard it is getting messy.

I posted 3 stories on Alamata and this one brings them together a bit. With rumours and disputed claims about a return of TPLF to Wolkait flying around the fear of more war coming is rising in the North of Ethiopia.

Private sources tell me that TPLF is overreaching, stirring up trouble again, and the absence of a clear public statement from the Govt clarifying precisely what is agreed or not at all helpful.

Worthy and unworthy Ethiopians via @abrennowabren.org/worthy-and-unw…
2/ this is the main story I wrote on Alamata back in 2022 after visiting immediately after the COHA Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was concluded in Pretoria.

It’s primarily a report about a huge mass grave on the right hand side on the Road heading north out of the city.

The story tells you what happened and what the locals in the town told me, and about the evidence they provided me of this as I left I did a more extensive interview with them into the broader story of what had happened in the city over the long periods of TPLF occupation. And leading up to the war breaking out in 2020

The idea that TPLF are back there again gives me chills. The mass grave which you can see in the story linked below is only a fraction of what the Alamata citizens have been through.

m.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211…
3/ This report from Arbren reports on the public source reports on what has recently happened.

The TPLF Military commanders remarks claiming that he was about to set up a Govt. Administration in Wolkait are the biggest problem here, but appear to for now just be just another typically brutal and reckless psyop.

That said the possibility of the TPLF rearming themselves, or being rearmed again by their allies with smuggled arms is definitely plausible and as a result the people of Alamata and Wollo to its south have lots of good reasons to be worried that this could escalate again.

abren.org/tplf-forces-pu…
Read 5 tweets
Mar 29
This is an interesting line of questioning here from Journalist @samhusseini which perhaps points to the substantive legal sophistry underlying the U.S. position on Gaza, in particular wrt the legality of wholesale slaughter y Israel of Gaza’s civilian population with U.S. supplied weapons .

@samhusseini tries to get answer from @StateDept’s Matthew Miller
(again) , he has been seeking an unambiguous answer repeatedly on this question as to « whether the U.S. govt accepts that the 4th Geneva Convention rules apply in the Gaza Conflict.
Meanwhile the rule of international law seems to be catching up on the Israeli-US « axis of sophistry » as we can see here in an new additional ICJ ruling on the Gaza Genocide complaint which coincides with the passage of a binding UNSC Resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict.
The most effective « Canary in the coal mine » in this drama from well before its initiation has been Francesca Albanese @FranceskAlbs.

Listen to her now.

Why? Because this crisis now stands on a knife edge. A window of hope for peace is now a little ajar, thanks to the combined weight of the UNSC ceasefire resolution and the progressing ICJ proceeding.

Albanese’s commitment, determination and enlightened investigation of the « Gaza War Palestine File » is peerless.

Her work began long before October 7th and this current obscene assault on the UN Charter, the rule of law and the « rules based order » which now engulfs the entire globe 🌍 in it’s implications.

This war, and Netanyahu’s impending attack on a concentrated starving population of well over 1 million souls is unprecedented, in its illegality as well as its possible consequences.

The entire world 🌍 is watching and praying and chanting and making offerings for peace. A peace that one man, an indicted financial and political criminal as well as a war criminal under investigation by the ICC over his role in both the settlements & the Great March of Return.

Read 5 tweets
Feb 22
An interesting report on Egypt 🇪🇬 ‘s response/practice when it comes to the shifting sands in international financial trading as a result of BRICS and the rise in the importance of the Yuan in particular for settling trade transactions.

At a practical level nations anticipating a loss in US dollar liquidity are increasingly hedging their bets on trade financing and broadening the quantity of trade in currencies other than the USD.

At a macro global level there is a high level of risk associated with these changes, principally because of the astronomical amount of US debt and deposits denominated in the USD.

The report shows that Egypt 🇪🇬 - a close U.S. ally is simultaneously seeking to be pragmatic about the threat this poses to its own economy by this expanding phenomena.

I have long considered that this « great unwinding » of the USD is the greatest threat to international economic conditions of my lifetime. I expect central bankers are having conniptions all over the planet at the moment.

Made in Egypt, sold in dollars goo.gl
Here is the original report I am referring to here. (See Quoted tweet).

What is happening now in global finance dwarfs the GFC of 2008 and its predecessor crises, the Asian Flue in the late 29th Century and the Dot Com Crash of the early 2000s.

The US Federal Reserve played a critical role in righting the great ship of global finance in those cases by providing liquidity. It is unclear whether they will be either willing or able to do so in the coming crises. Europe and China together need to consider how they can cooperate to address this coming crisis.

Critically the causes of this crisis are different and the War in Gaza is extremely important in relation to concerns about the Dollar and is driving the hoarding of USD liquidity by the super rich which is most probably one of the drivers of what is happening here.
P.S. India 🇮🇳 and OPEC likely also have an important role to play in addressing this coming crisis.

The simple truth is that USD Hegemony is unravelling and the impact of this is and will continue to be extremely destabilising globally in a manner unprecedented in the post WWII era.
Read 6 tweets

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