The weather in the middle east is already pretty weird - but it is about to get a lot weirder.
Simulations show a spectacular monsoon driven burst of water and energy pulsing over the Arabian Peninsula, bringing rain to the entire desert land mass over the next three weeks.
The animations above and below are both from this afternoon. And they show the developing weather patterns which will bring this event.
This is part of series of threads looking at a developing Sahara Water Transportation event (atmospheric river) which appears to be central component of this which was first noted here on December 5th (#AwesomeClimate) .
This thread contains forecasts for the main event which begins in earnest in 24 hours time with a developing rain event over the Red Sea Coast South West of Mecca/Makkah. We can see signs of this developing already in satellite imagery in the OP (initial post in this thread).
In this thread I break down the 16 days ahead into three phases which correspond to airborne water pulses coming in all the way from the Amazon - which interact with low pressure storms coming south over Europe in the Middle East.
This IWVT forecast brings all this together.
IVWT stands for Integrated Water Vapour Transport, and its addition to the @weathermodels_ international forcasting package is very timely.
It overlays PWAT (water vapour) MLSP (isobars) and wind data in a single plot. But as it is not that easy to read I will break it down.
This larger scale animation shows a much broader picture - and the feature note note here is the pulsating Easterly flows of water over the Sahara from the Tropical Atlantic.
This is today's satellite imagery - 12 hours off the north eastern coast of South America. It shows intense large scale convective storms over the sea as well as outflows from storms over the Amazon rainforest - this is where much of the water appears to be coming from.
This animations, same time frame, shows the visible signs of the atmospheric river that this is producing which arrives in West Africa over Senegal.
Here we see the broader picture showing both the source of the atmospheric river and its outflows. This atmospheric river is well over 10,000kms long, and travels around 9000 kms to the Middle East carried by jet stream winds.
This image completes the picture showing the current trajectory of water transportation over the Sahara. But as you can see in the Africa IWVT animation that trajectory is set to continue to migrate southwards over the coming 16 days.
As it migrates south it moves closer to the West African Monsoon which enables it to pick up more moisture on its journey eastwards towards the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.
This CMC model animation shows the PWAT (Water/Energy) component of this puzzle.
In the animation above you can see 10 days, and the first two pulses of three we can see in the GFS model 16 day forecast, the first of which is developing now.
The remainder of this thread will break what we can see of this event down into three phases.
1. Dec 24 - Dec 29 2. Dec 29-Jan 4 3. Jan 4 - Jan 9
At this stage it looks entirely possible this extreme weather event will continue beyond 16 days. We shall see.
الله أعلم
Phase one's development is apparent in the satellite imagery of the horn of Africa and the Middle East in the OP. We can see a cloud formation over the Red Sea and signs of a north easterly flow of convective outflows towards Makkah.
This animation shows forecast rainfall in this initial period - i.e. #Phase1
[Note: Specific rainfall forecast simulation is less reliable at longer range, as here we see the first five days however should be a reliable indication of the beginning of this event.
At the end of this first phase a fresh atmospheric river pulse arrives and #phase2 begins. In the IWVT animation (quoted tweet) you can see this also coincides with the arrival of the first storm from the north - bringing cold air - which causes rain.
Here's the PWAT forecast for phase 2 which takes us from 29th December through to January 4th. And here you can see the struggle between the cold air coming in from the north and and the warm wet air which is pushed south into Yemen.
And this is the corresponding rainfall forecast for this period (which is subject to greater error than the large scale dynamics forecasts related to the physic of what is happening in the atmosphere). This forecast suggests heaviest precipitation will be along the Iranian Coast.
Phase 3 begins on or around January 4th in this simulation and is still underway at the end of the current models on January 9th, with what looks like a fourth atmospheric river pulse about to arrive in the region.
And here is the current rainfall solution for this period. Which, is likely to change significantly.
This is good gif to end this on.
It shows us how unusual this is from a climate perspective. Atmospheric water levels are expected to be fairly consistently between 250% and 400% above normal through this period.
This view also shows the phased, wave like nature of this event.
This video is about the work done by the “terrorist” who drove through the Magdeburg Christmas Market tonight at high speed killing injuring around 100 people.
How does a doctor practicing as a psychiatrist go from being a women’s rights defender focussed on Assisting Islamic women to escape an oppressive culture to being a multi murderer in his adopted country.
Meet @DrTalebJawad
A very unusual terrorist.
A good starting point for those interested in getting closer to the truth about what happened tonight is to visit @DrTalebJawad ‘s Twitter profile and look at his recent messages before the account gets locked.
It is immediately apparent that this is not your normal Islamic terrorist, in fact it quickly becomes apparent from his tweets that he was likely suffering from a psychotic break or something similar before he committed the horrific act of terrorism in Magdeburg.
This incident took place in Magdeburg a city relatively near to where I am currently in Eastern Germany. It was fairly late evening. But the news exploded locally very quickly on Twitter.
And the initial speculation was of course that the terrorist was Islamic and that it was another planned terror attack.
At this point several hours later however it looks like the perpetrator was having an accrue psychological break.
Follow @bartov_omer he is an Israeli Genocide Scholar and (my guess) a realist geopolitical analyst who will almost certainly be heard a lot in coming days and weeks. x.com/bartov_omer?s=…
…. In large part because his explanation of the true nature of the implementation of the current phase of the so-called “general’s plan” in Gaza and the criminality of @IsraeliPM Bibi Netanyahu is so clear and authoritative.
The war in Gaza is now over Bartov explains.
What is now happening, and what remains to be done on the a Israeli side is effectively the implementation of the full Zionist extremist (Ben Givir Smotrich and Netanyahu plan - I.e. removing Palestinians from Gaza altogether, an object that will be achieved through starving the remaining civilians and using other methods to make it impossible to continue to live there.
The strip is already being carved up into enclaves for this purpose. You could call them “Ghettos” (my word) corralling and keeping the Palestinian population separated whilst efforts to remake and settle the strip are completed.
. @amanpour It’s not just the IDF that responds to press questions with rote answers that are clearly false.
The U.S. @StateDept has been doing exactly the same thing throughout the war for 14 months. Parroting the line “Israel has a right to defend itself” when everyone in the planet knows this is not true.
I know you must know this also. We all do.
I commend your report but I ask you and your network to please go further and actively oppose this war. And to call for it to end.
It is clear now in recent statements from Trump and Netanyahu that another war is intended in the Middle East by the U.S. and Israel. Its advocates will stood start lining up to beat the drums for this war.
Please @CNN, it is now time to end all of this.
The question we all have then is “When will the U.S. bring this evil to an end?”
A war with Iran 21 years after the horrific war in Iraq will have devastating consequences beyond imagining.
In its unwavering support for Netanyahu these past 14 months the U.S. is in the process now of destroying itself. Just as Israel is, or has done already.
The first speaker in this star studded panel here is sober clear and damning.
“… featuring Mustafa Barghouti, Mads Gilbert, Ilan Pappe, and Ingrid Fiskaa – discusses and critically explores three key areas: the present moment where Gaza remains under constant genocidal attack from Israel; the so-called “legitimacy” of the rules-based order (including but not limited to international law) that’s supposed to prevent or stop such violence; and the future of rebuilding Gaza in a way that actually honours the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the Palestinian people.”
The panel is moderated by Paul Salvatori, senior producer and presenter at TRT World.
As Christmas and the New Year approach, reflection, both self and outward looking are part of the zeitgeist for the faithful throughout the world.
As it stands this Christmas in Bethlehem will be the “second Christmas during an ongoing Genocide”. Placed in quote marks here because it seems hard to reconcile with reality.
How can this still be continuing?
How is it that the @Statedept even now - 15 months after October 7th and more recently the defeat of both Hezbollah and Assad - is still mostly saying “Israel has a right to defend itself. As massacres of 50-80 Gaza civilians - predominantly women and children - continue to occur on a daily basis.
Could there at least be a Christmas and New Years Truce? A brief silencing of the guns, a break from the endless massacre of innocents via fire-from-the-sky, as if Gaza were now Mordor.
It is certainly already nearly as desolate.
Someone needs to ask Bibi Netanyahu who is unusually and nearly singularly responsibility for all of this. WHEN AND HOW DOES THIS END?
There is a new chapter on the story of Mosab Hassan Yousef.
This is the original production of this. But he will soon be known far better than he was when Chris Cuomo brought his story to life here back in December 2023 at the outset of the war, in the wake of January 7th.
Hamas Founder's Son Turned Israeli Spy - Mosab Hassan Yousef, "The Green... youtu.be/llJxz1pAlQQ?si… via @YouTube
“Hamas’s Aspiration is global”
“The Muslim Brotherhood is Here in the United States.”
For clarification Mosab Hassan is unquestionably completely genuine and in is views, and like me he is a pacifist when it comes to saving human life from conflict. And this as he articulates very very clearly remains his view.
And for this reason - notwithstanding the fact that this latest broadcast is extremely triggering, and will likely soon become very controversial, is also very important.
The target of this messaging is Americans. Not me.
And probably not you, even though a large portion of my followers are in the U.S.