As a poster child for the impact of climate change on developing nations this cyclone, is a truly terrifying phenomena. In the next 24 hours it will make landfall at most likely Cat 4 or Cat 5 Hurricane Strength.
The animation above is live and covers the last three hours. This animation shows the last 24 hours.
Madagascar is an impoverished nation of nearly 30 million people the majority of whom live in the path of this Cyclone's wind and forecast extreme rain.
Whilst at Cat 4 strength a day ago what was already Intense Cyclone #Batsirai underwent a eyewall replacement and slowed down, it is now accelerating and strengthening.
This is a cyclone with the destructive potential of the Atlantic hurricanes which have become legends, Andrew or Dorian. Had it been approaching Florida, evacuations would have been ordered for those in its path days ago.
Madagascar is three times the size of Florida with 50% greater population. The area which will be effected by hurricane force winds in Madagascar (see above) is likely the size of all of Florida.
The entire island is - the world's 4th largest at 490k km2 - 50k km2 larger than France - is forecast to receive 50-700mm of rain in the next 10 days, more than half of it looks like it will receive over 200mm of rain. This is forecast to be a truly biblical event,
What looks likely to be the most impacted area in the south East receives most of this rain over a period of less than 30 hours, between 3am tomorrow morning and 9am on Sunday (UTC).
Here's an animation of rain accumulation (latest GFS model) over the next 10 days. While Batsirai itself will pass swiftly it is dragging with it a huge mass of extremely wet air with it which will continue to bring rain to the island for 10 days+.
From what I can see there are no Western News reporting teams in Madagascar for this storm. And among major global news sources, only @CNN has covered it. UN has issued flash alerts about it but it has not had as much UN PR attention as Storm Ana did.
As I say, a poster child....
For a world which is doing next to nothing to address the consequences of climate change on those least able to protect themselves.
For a world which isn't even paying attention to a climate catastrophe that was obviously coming a week ago.
/ENDS
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At this point following the Qatar obscenity Israel is now breaking the internet and the world.
something decisive is needed to break Israel - a peaceful action that will work and show the world that justice still exists and that peace is possible.
A wise friend proposed a brilliant idea. Every nation on earth which is willing and able should send a frigate to the Mediterranean Sea and take a message to Israel that it cannot ignore.
The foundations of the United Nations itself are now crumbling under the weight of the Gaza Obscenity and nations like Britain that seem to have been turned are facing protest and resistance of epic proportions from their citizens.
I’ll be posting videos and news here on Twitter from the flotilla which is about to depart from Majorca for Tunis on the first leg of the journey to Gaza.
More boats are expected to join the flotilla from Europe and North Africa along the way as it moves west across the Mediterranean. @GretaThunberg is making the voyage again and Israel will not be able to contain or stop this flotilla most likely. And definitely not the publicity.
This first video is of a wind squall hitting one of the boats as it departs Barcelona.
Netanyahu has proposed a pathway to end the war in Gaza under pressure primarily from the U.S. UK, France & Germany. Spain and Ireland and several other European nations & the European Commission.
The @israelipm sounds defeated. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end. The deal being offered to Gaza is far from perfect but it sounds workable in Netanyahus outline.
@IsraeliPM Whether it will be approved by Hamas however is unclear and rather complicated - as it’s unclear who inside Gaza would be in a position to respond to the offer. Many of Hamas’s fighters may prefer to die as martyrs also than to agree to any deal.
This is pathetic from @realDonaldTrump he’s lashing out like an angry teenager. Jerome Powell says he’s included a the costs of a building that was completed years ago in his very public attack on the FED Chair.
Trump has completely lost the plot. The single most damaging thing that he could do to undermine confidence in the U.S. dollar (which he publicly claims to want to deflate and there by make all Americans poorer - is to attack the Federal Reserve and the SEC.
@realDonaldTrump Trump is setting fire to the dollar to distract from his Epstein mess what a complete baby.
I attended the Bonn climate talks. They were very disappointing to everyone. The elephant in the room was (of course) the U.S. decision to withdraw from the talks altogether.
Unfortunately.. perhaps intentionally in advance of the continuation of climate talks regardless of #US_Disintigration the talks were also very sparsely attended particularly by activists and NGOs. The reason for this was @elonmusk destroying @-USAID.
@elonmusk As you can see the USAID Twitter account is now dead - deleted which is an appalling act of vandalism executed by Elon and his tech-bro team of teenagers.