Post

Alastair Thompson

Apr 17, 2022 • 40 tweets • 19 min read • Read on X

North Africa, Ethiopia and Middle East long range rainfall forecast bulletin:

The interaction between the two greatest Equatorial forests is having a massive impact on weather (see quoted thread for more).

https://twitter.com/althecat/status/1515389704459460613?s=20&t=Qp0QlZH5m6ECxfFww2Ip3Q

This bulletin begins with a look at Ethiopia where rains over the #HornOfAfrica have been steadily building in April (img: today). A strong big rainy season is indicated by this, notwithstanding a strong La Nina which is typically associated with droughts (see quoted thread ^^).

We can see a glimpse of the GERD today - Easter Sunday in the Western Church - through the clouds (Rosieres Top Right - GERD Bottom Left). Satellite images of the dam - which this year will have its 2nd filling - may be increasingly hard to get with increasing cloud.

This image from April 13tt shows the GERD and Rosieres (Dam) as well as Lake Tana, the pride of Gondar and source of the Abbay aka the Blue Nile which provides roughly 60% of the flow of the mighty Nile river.

Last year the 2nd GERD filling was completed on July 19th-21st. Just three weeks into the big rainy season - as a result of high levels of rain. The year before, 2020, the 1st filling was completed on July 20th. God willing there will be another early filling this year.

These 10 & 12 day accumulated rain forecast maps for rain in the #HornOfAfrica are from yesterday. They show rain in #Ethiopia (incl Tigray, Afar and Somali regions) as well as #Eritrea #Somalia and #Sudan. The first two are from the KMA model (10 & 12 days).

These three plots, from today, show estimated total rain over the next three days. The forecast rain is remarkably widespread. Rain will likely be particularly welcome in the dryer and drought effected areas in the East of the Horn - Somalia and Ethiopia's Somali region.

This animation - also from yesterday shows the atmospheric weather picture over Ethiopia over 10 days - ECM model - there are multiple sources of the water which will bring this rain - which I will discuss later in this bulletin.

^^ There is a significant regional (ME+HOA "flooding of the zone" PWAT (Precipitable Water) event beginning April 19th-20th, driven by convection in the Indian Ocean which is responsible for much of this rain. The red areas you see in the animation show a glimpse of this.

We will now move to the Middle East.

The regional "flooding the zone" event is already underway - and is forecast to intensify this coming week. This animation shows storms in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

This animation begins on the 13th and ends on 14th of April.

@Arab_Storms

. @Arab_Storms remains the best source of eyewitness reports of the consequences of storms on the Arabian Peninsula. Here are a few of his recent tweets.

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1515749859566968838?s=20&t=Qp0QlZH5m6ECxfFww2Ip3Q

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1515675482347524100?s=20&t=Qp0QlZH5m6ECxfFww2Ip3Q

This one is from Oman.

https://twitter.com/Arab_Storms/status/1515653372744974337?s=20&t=Qp0QlZH5m6ECxfFww2Ip3Q

But what is really extraordinary is what is yet to come in the Middle East, especially when you bear in mind that model rainfall forecasts for the Arabian Peninsula tend to under-estimate the intensity of rains.

Here are four 10 day model forecasts for rainfall in the Mddle East (yesterday's runs)

These three day forecasts cover the period before the significant rains arrive.

This animation shows the broader picture. Rain falling on the mountains in the South West of the peninsula today are higher than forecast - and they are being fed from the North, by a Saharan water transport event - which is indicative of what we are seeing more generally.

This PWAT (Precipitable Water) animation 16-days shows the "Flooding the zone" ME rain event through to early May.

These are yesterday's long range rainfall forecasts - 12, 15 and 16 day accumulated rain forecasts for the region. In the 12 months I have been following this - I have never seen anything remotely like this.

While April is Saudi Arabia's wettest month. Historically that typically means 1-5 days of rain - in most places the average is closer to 1. This forecast shows rain every day over Saudi Arabia - over large areas of desert.

Next up we are going to look at North Africa - beginning with an PWAT animation of all of Africa. In this animation you can see (at the beginning) a cyclonic event over Madagascar (another one) which is contributing to this.

This animation shows PWAT anomlay over the entire African continent. And what is startling in this is the consistent anomaly over the Sahel - which has been there for weeks now.

This animation shows the source of the water stream which is bringing rain to in Jinzan Mountains today in West Africa.

The WMA (West African Monsoon) is one of two sources of water causing the current and forecast sources of water over the Middle East. The other is the Amazon.

This animation from the 11th-12th April shows the interaction of the two monsoons more clearly. There is a flow of water westerly from the WMA into the Amazon. And just north of it a return path, carrying water from the Northern Amazon over Western Sahara.

This animation is from tonight. It shows a new atmospheric river, not yet that intense, originating in the north of the Amazon.

This closeup animation - 24 hours shows the source of this atmospheric river more clearly.

A16 day animation shows how this atmospheric river is expected to evolve and intensify. A messy picture as the dominant water flow is to the west, but the direction of the red "lip" we see here definitely indicates a North Easterly atmospheric river strengthening.

This broader view shows simplifies the picture -as within the atmospheric column water can flow in different directions in large quantities. Intense convection projects water into jet streams which carry water massive distances at high speed. And in this case over the Sahara.

This animation is from the Canadian CMC model and it illustrates the "flooding the zone" hypothesis very clearly. The amount of atmospheric water we see here over Sudan and Chad, is seriously anomalous for this time of year.

Which brings us to the consequences in rainfall. The CMC model is an outlier here. But all models even the conservative ECMWF are showing a very intense WMA for this time of year - and significant rains across the #Sahel & in the #HOA and #MiddleEast.

Here we have longer range forecasts, respectively 12 (KMA), 16 (GFS) and 15 (EPS) days.

Finally because its interesting, its important to understand that the Europe is also affected by all this. This from today shows the impact of the West African Monsoon sourced atmospheric river over the Eastern Mediterranean.

Over the next 16 days Europe's Zone is also expected to be flooded.

BONUS images:

Rainfall forecasts for:
1. All of Africa
2. North Indian Ocean and SEA
3. Eurasia
4. Europe.

@Threadreaderapp

/ENDS

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The most effective « Canary in the coal mine » in this drama from well before its initiation has been Francesca Albanese @FranceskAlbs.

Listen to her now.

Why? Because this crisis now stands on a knife edge. A window of hope for peace is now a little ajar, thanks to the combined weight of the UNSC ceasefire resolution and the progressing ICJ proceeding.

Albanese’s commitment, determination and enlightened investigation of the « Gaza War Palestine File » is peerless.

Her work began long before October 7th and this current obscene assault on the UN Charter, the rule of law and the « rules based order » which now engulfs the entire globe 🌍 in it’s implications.

This war, and Netanyahu’s impending attack on a concentrated starving population of well over 1 million souls is unprecedented, in its illegality as well as its possible consequences.

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An interesting report on Egypt 🇪🇬 ‘s response/practice when it comes to the shifting sands in international financial trading as a result of BRICS and the rise in the importance of the Yuan in particular for settling trade transactions.

At a practical level nations anticipating a loss in US dollar liquidity are increasingly hedging their bets on trade financing and broadening the quantity of trade in currencies other than the USD.

At a macro global level there is a high level of risk associated with these changes, principally because of the astronomical amount of US debt and deposits denominated in the USD.

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Made in Egypt, sold in dollars goo.gl

Here is the original report I am referring to here. (See Quoted tweet).

What is happening now in global finance dwarfs the GFC of 2008 and its predecessor crises, the Asian Flue in the late 29th Century and the Dot Com Crash of the early 2000s.

The US Federal Reserve played a critical role in righting the great ship of global finance in those cases by providing liquidity. It is unclear whether they will be either willing or able to do so in the coming crises. Europe and China together need to consider how they can cooperate to address this coming crisis.

Critically the causes of this crisis are different and the War in Gaza is extremely important in relation to concerns about the Dollar and is driving the hoarding of USD liquidity by the super rich which is most probably one of the drivers of what is happening here.

P.S. India 🇮🇳 and OPEC likely also have an important role to play in addressing this coming crisis.

The simple truth is that USD Hegemony is unravelling and the impact of this is and will continue to be extremely destabilising globally in a manner unprecedented in the post WWII era.

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Alastair Thompson

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If you haven’t read this yet do so.1news.co.nz/2023/12/30/joh…

Justifiably the bit in the piece on former pm, Labour Leader @chrishipkins is excoriating, albeit in the relatively understated personal rhetorical tone in which @JohnJCampbell has achieved mastery.

“Labour’s vote almost halved in three years and their leader is talking about “vibe”.
“People don’t vote on a left-right continuum. They vote on the vibe of the campaign”, Chris Hipkins declared.
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If you’re having a sausage sizzle and you don’t have any sausages, that’s not a vibe issue. It’s that the central ingredient isn’t there.
Audrey Young asked Chris Hipkins what sort of Leader of the Opposition he wants to be. He talked about “highlighting how we would do things differently, and charting a different course”, which echoes David Lange’s belief that if you want to be elected you have to look like a government in waiting.
But then Chris Hipkins said, “you won’t see much of that in the first few months, because we need to take stock and we need to the opportunity to reflect and refresh.”
Good God. The first few months? (Is Labour on sabbatical?) By that stage the Government will be insisting that everyone called Wiremu change their name to William.”

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This far right extremist govt did not need to happen - a TPM/Green/Labour/NZF coalition would have had a majority of 7 - but @ChrisHipkins unilaterally (in another captains call) blocked this.

Had the left contested this post election by engaging with NZ First in discussions the divisive policy trajectory we are currently on might have been at least softened if not averted. A wide ranging public debate over the direction of NZ’s next Govt would have taken place and some of the extremism present in what we now see would have been watered down.

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