Alastair Thompson Profile picture
Jun 7, 2022 24 tweets 13 min read Read on X
A long range image based weather forecast thread for #Ethiopia, #NorthAfrica #MiddleEast and #India...

Occasioned by my return from Ethiopia to my home in France. These first two images show #Ethiopia on June 2nd and June 7th (today). The big rains are beginning.
These three big pictures show satellite observed cloud activity yesterday over the tropical belt in the populated hemisphere from the Western Pacific across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans to the Eastern Pacific.
The description part of this thread begins over the Indian Ocean which as you can see here - in a 16 day precipitable water forecast - is filling up with water coming in from the east.

On the basis of this GFS model forecast it looks as if the Indian Monsoon is about to begin.
This animation shows the accumulating rainfall forecast over this 16 day period.
This animation provides more details about the atmospheric water movement in the Indian Ocean over this period.

The dominant water flow pattern indicated here is south west (up the East coast of Africa) towards the north west. And is forecast to strengthen rapidly.
There is a reason I am focussing on this, as it is this burst of monsoon activity which will also bring the big rains to Ethiopia, which will provide the rain for the Grand Ethiopian Rennaissance Dam (GERD)'s next filling, and deliver the rain needed for this year's harvest.
This image shows the GERD dam on June 2nd (Sudan's Rosieres dam is top left). You can see that the lake is already turning brown as the Abay flood waters arrive. This is the last clear satellite image of the dam. It has been obscured by cloud ever since.
This satellite animation shows the last 24hours over the Horn of Africa.
This wider view shows the complexity of the atmospheric water flows over East Africa and the West Indian Ocean.
This GFS model 16 day forecast of 250hpa Jetstream winds (8kms to 15kms altitude) shows the beginning of formation of a climatic feature which will help bring the big rains. The winds - shown moving westwards over southern India here, will pick up water from the Indian monsoon.
This is the latest GFS accumlating rain forecast from today through to the 17th of June.
There's a fair bit of variation between the three model forecasts in the details we have for Ethiopian rain over the coming 10 days (1. ECMWF [euro], 2.GFS [US] and 3&4. KMA 10&12 days [Korea]) but the overall picture is consistent the rains are starting.
We now zoom out to the North African Picture more broadly. This animation shows the Sahara over the past 24 hours, including revealing an atmospheric river originating in West Africa carrying water to the Levant.
Here we see the overall atmospheric water picture which shows - as climate models have been predicting - increasing quantitites of atmospheric water over the Sahel.
The atmospheric climate anomaly is more obvious in this view - showing precipitable water anomalies vs the 1981-2010 data set. But deterministic (physics) model predictions of rainfall from this vary considerably.
Here are four model forecasts
1.ECMWF,
2. EPS (Euro Ensemble),
3. GFS and
4. KMA models.
The Canadian CMC model has been consistently the most bullish model when it comes to #DesertRain.
We also have two longer range model rainfall forecasts.
1. GFS 16-days (384 hours)
2. KMA 12-Days (288 hours)
To complete the Africa portion of this long rainge weather forecast bulletin here is the Africa wide IWVT (Integrated Water Vapour Transport) model forecast from the GFS 3hr model.

This shows the clearest view of the NW Indian Ocean atmospheric water flows.
The final set of forecasts are for the Middle East. And to introduce them we have another big picture, showing the Horn of Africa, Egypt, the Near & Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, an area representing a very significant portion of human history and population.
Here's a PWAT forecast for this area, this time from the Australian Access-G model.
For now at least it appears that the unusual June 2021 rains in Saudi Arabia (see quoted tweet) are not in the forecasts.
Here we have three longer range forecasts for the middle East. The EPS model shows a fair bit of rain over the Jinzan Mountains from Yemen up the Eastern Red Sea Coast. Time will tell.
1. EPS Ensemble (15 days)
2. GEFS Ensemble (16 days)
3. KMA (12 days)
Which is not to say there is not a lot of extreme weather out there......

Check out @Arab_Storms for the latest events, of which there appear to be many.

/ENDS

@Threadreaderapp unroll

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Alastair Thompson

Alastair Thompson Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @althecat

Jun 7
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.


Image
Image
Image
Image
Read 19 tweets
Jun 5
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.Image
Image
Image
Image
Thread follows with news links.

1/ bbc.com/news/articles/…
^^ previous story @BBC
@euronews

euronews.com/video/2024/06/…
Read 9 tweets
May 10
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.

piratewires.com/p/interview-wi…
1/many THREAD

Twitter files related, @jack says the issue of censorship takedown was way broader than we knew and fully global. Image
@jack And even Australia was involved in seeking broad powers to take down content on Twitter. « Per country takedown capability was introduced in 2009 » Image
Read 15 tweets
May 4
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.

Worthy and unworthy Ethiopians via @abrennowabren.org/worthy-and-unw…
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.

m.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2211…
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.

abren.org/tplf-forces-pu…
Read 5 tweets
Mar 29
This is an interesting line of questioning here from Journalist @samhusseini which perhaps points to the substantive legal sophistry underlying the U.S. position on Gaza, in particular wrt the legality of wholesale slaughter y Israel of Gaza’s civilian population with U.S. supplied weapons .

@samhusseini tries to get answer from @StateDept’s Matthew Miller
(again) , he has been seeking an unambiguous answer repeatedly on this question as to « whether the U.S. govt accepts that the 4th Geneva Convention rules apply in the Gaza Conflict.
Meanwhile the rule of international law seems to be catching up on the Israeli-US « axis of sophistry » as we can see here in an new additional ICJ ruling on the Gaza Genocide complaint which coincides with the passage of a binding UNSC Resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict.
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.

The entire world 🌍 is watching and praying and chanting and making offerings for peace. A peace that one man, an indicted financial and political criminal as well as a war criminal under investigation by the ICC over his role in both the settlements & the Great March of Return.

Read 5 tweets
Feb 22
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.

The report shows that Egypt 🇪🇬 - a close U.S. ally is simultaneously seeking to be pragmatic about the threat this poses to its own economy by this expanding phenomena.

I have long considered that this « great unwinding » of the USD is the greatest threat to international economic conditions of my lifetime. I expect central bankers are having conniptions all over the planet at the moment.

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.
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(