The center of Intense Cyclone Batsirai has nearly completed its crossing of Madagascar but the storm/wind field continues to impact the southern half of the island.
The most intense rainfall was concentrated near the Capital City Antisirabe, the 4th largest city moving slowly. Extreme flooding in this area appears likely. And there were two additional extreme rainfall events in the North and the West of the island, fueled by the storm.
We see in this image that the eye of the storm (with its most damaging winds) remained intact for several hours after landfall finally losing its structure in the early hours Sunday Morning.
The lightning display as seen in satellite imagery during this period is extraordinary.
Over the next five hours you can see the intensity dropped but the circulation itself remained very intact. The rain animation above from @Meteoblue suggests rainfall was much reduced during this period.
@meteoblue Over the last six hours forward motion has slowed as the storm begins to reorganise itself with strong convection over the Mozambique Channel in the upper left here.
Here we can see the rain also picking up in the North Western Quadrant. This suggests the storm may be already re-strengthening.
A satellite view of this same 6 hour period.
Here we can see the atmospheric aftermath of #Batsirai, having generated so much moisture this moisture now needs to be either fall as rain or move somewhere else. This is a 16 day animation and it shows the moisture moving East and some returning as two more cyclones.
This IVT (Water Vapour Transport) forecast provides a clearer view of what is expected to happen. But bear in mind (as we have seen with #Batsirai) that cyclones are unpredictable, so this is just one of multiple possible scenarios.
TL/DR Madagascar is not yet out of the woods.
As #Batsirai was passing over Madagascar the first of the cyclones which you see towards the end of the animations above - Tropical Cyclone Cliff formed in the Indian Ocean, going through a process called Cyclone Genesis - which you can see below.
The experts in this process are the team at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center [metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/jtwc.html] in the @USNavy who coordinate cyclone warnings globally.
What is now Cyclone Cliff was designated as a disturbance of interest (sometimes called a tropical wave) on February 2nd. When updates are posted by the JTWC they also provide forecast/reasoning statements like this.
In addition the computer models which produce the charts which I post in these threads simulate the development of these storms from which constantly updated charts like these are produced which provide us with long range warning of possible cyclones.
The latest GFS simulation model run for the South Indian Ocean posted earlier the this thread and quoted below shows a outcome that does not threaten Madagascar. But as cyclones are very unpredictable a close eye will need to be kept on this storm.
At the moment the "GEFS ensemble mean" suggests that this storm does pose a threat to Madagascar. TC Cliff has the possibility of becoming an Intense Cyclone similar in strength and possibly larger than #CycloneBatsirai
If @realDonaldTrump chooses to join Netanyahu’s genocidal campaign if he is not obeyed …. he WILL find himself indicted in the international criminal court in The Hague.
And he will then have to make a decision on whether he is willing to remain in the U.S.
@realDonaldTrump Should he proceed as he has intimated that he should now be pursued by protestors everywhere he goes.
There is a lot of concern about evacuations of civilians from Gaza in the flotilla as anyone leaving may not be able to return any time soon. /2
But the moral hazard here is palpable. There are thousands of injured and starving mostly women and children. And we saw the young babies dying in the hospitals in the early stages of this war. /3
More and more naval vessels from Europe and the Middle East are being deployed to protect the Global Samir Flotilla as it moves slowly but surely towards Gaza where it intends to deliver aid and global attention. /1
Attacks from drones on the flotilla have resumed and Israel is presumably responsible for this. It is because of this that naval vessels from Europe are now joining the flotilla to protect their citizens rights of travel in international waters. /2
The escalation appears fairly slow at present and the flotilla is still within Greek waters at present /3
The #Samud #GazaFlotilla is currently sailing across the Ionian Sea towards the island archipelago south east of Athens in the Western Mediterranean. Conditions appear good for this leg that departed from Sicily after leaving Tunisia. The Flotilla set off from Barcelona.
2/ this current leg is 860 kms roughly and lead boats in the 51 vessel flotilla are currently approaching south western Greece. You can follow the flotillas progress here >> flotilla-orpin.vercel.app
3/ After two drone attacks on flotilla boats in Tunisia the flotilla sailed first to Sicily where it was joined by several more boats. And this map shows the path of the flotilla so far. The numbers in the dots indicate more vessels joining #GazaFlotilla