Intense Cyclone Batsirai has strengthened rapidly and grown significantly larger. It has now passed Mauritius and its outer bands are now over Reunion.
Madagascar is 1000kms long top to bottom and #BatsiraiCyclone's outer bands are roughly the same size. With sustained winds of over 113 knots the storm is now the equivalent of a Category 4 Major Hurricane.
The JTWC's latest forecast track update #13 shows the storm maintaining very intense cyclone intensity up to landfall (of the eyewall - maximum strength winds) in the morning on Saturday. Rain and high winds will arrive on Friday.
The PWAT forecast data from the ECMWF model suggests #Batsirai will cover the entire Island as it passes over and while its sustained winds will reduce sharply on landfall, will remain intact as it crosses the island's on a trajectory covering roughly 340kms.
This ECMWF forecast shows the eye of the Cyclone open shortly after it reaches the Mozambique Channel. If possible it may be advisable for all in the direct path of this cyclone to get out of its way.
Arrival time on the East Coast is at present still two days away and #Batsirai is forecast to take a further two days to cross the Island. The Hurricane will not weaken on arrival as it will maintain a significant footprint over warm ocean water whilst making its transit.
In rain terms this is the latest ECMWF rainfall simulation for #Batsirai, more than 500kms of the East Coast and areas adjacent to roughly 100kms inland are expected to receive over 400+ mm of rain in the first 36 hours.
And rain continues through the forecast period.
This Precipitable Water animation explains why. This is a worse case storm scenario. A slow moving super cyclone such as #Batsirai generates massive amounts of airborne water - and as it approaches Africa there is already a lot of moisture due to it being monsoon season.
This animation shows half the rainfall in 6hrly snapshots (every second one is dropped). Effectively #Batsirai floods the zone and so rain continues over Madagascar after it passes.
This version of the same data - now with all the rain shows the accumulated rainfall totals. A southern Mozambique landfall is currently forecast in a week on Feb 8th, delivering very similar, catastrophic levels of rain.
#Batsirai's current forecast path then takes it south west over Maputo the capital of Mozambique, Eswatini, and into North Eastern South Africa. Modelling suggests the storm may follow the coast southwards at that point - but cyclones, especially strong ones, are unpredictable.
This unpredictability is apparent in today's significant strengthening of #Batsirai, the storm had been forecast to weaken as it approached Madagscar.
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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.
Intense bombing by Israeli forces on Gaza continues and kills at least 3... via @YouTube
This report also addresses the widening rift between Israeli PM Netanyahu and the U.S. Government. True to form Netanyahu is showing no sign of backing down. But this tweet showing former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant leaving on a U.S. flight for the U.S. speaks volumes in this very intense moment.
Amidst continued bombing of Rafah, Israeli forces are resuming strikes i... via @YouTube
And here from two days ago more Margaret Brennan context on the rupture in relations between the @WhiteHouse and @IsraeliPM
Israel has not come close to destroying Hamas, U.S. official says via @YouTube
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.
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.
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.
Twitter files related, @jack says the issue of censorship takedown was way broader than we knew and fully global.
@jack And even Australia was involved in seeking broad powers to take down content on Twitter. « Per country takedown capability was introduced in 2009 »
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.
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.
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.