Image below shows the situation as at roughly 2pm AST/EAT. A large storm with a line of thunderstorms sits over Saudi Arabia heading North East towards Iraq.
This animation shows 18hours of rainfall over the region. As you can see Iraq and Jordan, two countries which have been facing very severe droughts received the most generous portions of last nights rain. The Area where NEOM is located also looks to have received lots.
This is a 24 hour visual animation of satellite imagery from @zoom_earth of the beginning of this latest active phase in the event.
This animation shows six hours this part of the atmospheric river is heading due north towards the end gradually curving to the left guided by the storm over the Mediterranean.
This wide angle view shows that storm which is moving very slowly if at all currently off the coast of Libya near Bhengazi (we will look at it in more detail shortly) - and which is playing a very big role in this event.
On LHS there is a large atmospheric river making landfall.
This 12 hour animation of the broader picture helps us see what is going on as we can see how the elements are interacting. There are two low pressure circulations over the Eastern Med for e.g.
Two large water flow mechanisms are invisible as they aren't producing clouds.
Fortunately we can complete the picture using the simulation data. This is a simulation from 8th Jan of the water transport data - Wind, Atmospheric Moisture and and MLSP (isobars). Its a bit difficult to read though.
Looking into the detail at 0 hour data we can see what the models thought the situation was in real time as they initiated their simulations. Here we can see what was happening in terms of West Africa /Atlantic Monsoon flows yesterday.
There is a continuous stream across the Aahara from Senegal to Sudan, but not all of it is moving fast and most of it is not moving east at all, its being recycled back into the Atlantic over Western Sahara.
This is this morning's 6am 0 hour reading from the GFS3 Model. I have 3 questions. 1. What is happening in the Great African Equatorial Forest Area/Gulf of guinea? 2. What is happening with the storm in the Med? 3. What is the role of the East African monsoon, NW Indian Ocean?
And a fourth.
4. Is there a new strong water impulse coming in from the Amazon as indicated in the satellite imagery. To which the answer is yes,
Q1. What is happening in the Great African Equatorial Forest Area/Gulf of guinea?
A: Whilst satellite imagery of this is very pretty the direction of flow of most water in this area is very strongly westward.
Here's a satellite image of the last 12 hours. It shows the storm (bottom left) which brought snow to Tunisia on 8 Jan (quoted tweet). The rest is far from clear there is clearly more than 1 low pressure system though.
A 24 hour long version is not much more helpful. Note that on @Zoom_earth you can look at this in a great deal more detail & share.
This is a 24 hour simulation of what we see above. Which tells us more. There are three lows in there, and the most important of these appears to be the one in the rear as its the deepest (994 vs 1001-Bhengazi and 1002-Bospherous Straits).
It shows some recycling of the water which is passing through the levant underway. And we also know it is cold as it is travelling southwards - which is why it is important. And we can see the lows are curling the path of Atlantic water flow and sending it north over Ukraine.
And it also suggests flooding is possible in South West France. For which a warning has been issued. I am further north in Brittany, where it is not very cold, and raining, thanks to this atmospheric river. connexionfrance.com/French-news/Al…
Using the model data we can also check the accuracy of the forecast. On the left is the forecast of what we see on the right from three dats ago.
The storm is more organised than it was expected to be and 4mb stronger - which is quite a lot.
Note also the water transport energy readings over the North sea and North Africa. These are also significant.
We can also se what the model thinks will happen next (latest run). The storm is still expected to disintegrate as it comes into contact with the North Africa Coast.
But by then its work will have been done, dragging quantities of cold air and moisture from the North Atlantic all to Egypt and the Levant where its is now colliding with a atmospheric river from the Amazon which is being reinforced by the East Africa Monsoon.
Q3. What is the role of the East African monsoon & NW Indian Ocean?
Because the answer to Question 1. was "No". we need to understand where the additional water comes from which powers the major phase of this event from 13th to 18th January.
This is another 72 hour simulation forecast. Of PWAT anomaly. And in simple terms the question is, if the water which makes the blue blob on the right grow over the next three days doesn't come from the Great Equatorial Monsoon, then where does it come from?
This image overlays the rough boundaries and size of the massive area significantly higher than normal atmospheric water for this time of year (vs climate norms) is expected to occupy, prior to the major phase beginning on the night of Jan 13-14th.
Part of the reason that this event is forecast to last so long (and be so dangerous as a result) is that the second blob you see in the earlier PWAT Anom animation (the one on the left) - arrives in the ME in several days time, providing an additional burst of energy/water.
The above animation shows the current forecast for 213 hours through to the forecast end of the event on 19th January. This animation of IVWT (now my favourite @WeatherModels_ chart) shows the period to the 14th - and the beginning of the forecast major event.
@weathermodels_ That animation is again not that helpful, but it illustrates the main point. These two plots are for the same point in time - 3pm tomorrow. Over the next 24 hours the direction of the Sahara plume moves from North East to East, sending moisture towards the UAE rather than Iraq.
This stream then recycles itself, travelling in a loop over SE over the Gulf, Iran, south over the Empty Quarter, the UAE and Oman the inside of the loop travels back up the Red sea while the outer bands move down the Somali coast turning West over Kenya and then north west.
This cluster of lows is indicative of an unstable atmosphere and the Cape Index plot for the same period indicates that there is also a peak unstable period at this time to the south over the DRC. This should produce large thunderstorms.
And the high altitude moisture from these thunderstorms will be picked up by these highspeed Jetstream winds .
If you look closely there is a deviation in these winds south over CAR and which turns back north over Sudan.
All this should be fairly obvious in satellite imagery.
Interestingly this water recycling/transit activity is not expected to result in very much rain by the models, except in the highlands of Ethiopia. We shall see..
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.
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.
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.
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.
#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…
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.
This image shows the forecast expected severe weather threat from the remnants of #HurricaneBeryl in Arkansas and Missouri up as far as Saint Louis.
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.
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
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.