The current "Biblical" rain event over Pakistan - which has destroyed 145 bridges and has one third of the country under water began on August 10th - and has the form of a cyclone over land. 17 days of torrential rains. (image: last 24 hours)
This image, also today, shows the scale of the outflows from the cyclonic storm which remains centered around 300kms from the sea and which is fed by atmospheric water coming off the North Arabian Sea. The outflows from the storm are causing devastating flooding further north.
This thread will now look at what happened since the last thread which ended on August 19th. The set up for this catastrophic event involves two cyclones, both of which have remained largely intact over land. Here on the left you can see #Invest04B 2022 (unnamed) making landfall.
These images show #Invest04B crossing India over 4 days - 19-22 August - heading towards the storm over South East Pakistan and Rajastan India.
On the 22nd of August the Storm from the Bay Bengal started to drag the smaller storm over Pakistan into its orbit.
This 22/8 animation shows 24 hours when the storms started to interact - it also shows how the huge storm over the center of India is being fed by streams of water from both the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.
And the following day, the two storms effectively became one.
In the animation it is obvioys that the storm is strengthening over land. And the area affected by it - over India and Pakistan is colossal 1.3 million km2. Roughly 1% of Earth's landmass - an area larger than Peru, and a little smaller than Mongolia.
On 23-24 August the combined India Pakistan rain storm continued to move west - with the outflow rain bands flowing NNE covering an even larger area.
On the 25th the storm was once again centered over the same area in South East Pakistan where it formed 15 days earlier on the 10th August from a depression which travelled inland from the Arabian Sea.
The intensity of the outflows here is astonishing.
25-26th August.
Yesterday.
And the storm appears to be finally weakening. The circulation appears to be disintegrating.
And 26th-27th August getting us up to date.
The storm has finally gone. Some streams of atmospheric water are still coming north over Pakistan. but this may be finally over tomorrow
As the clouds finally clear it is possible to see what look like the flooded areas from satellite, which are huge. First image is an initial effort to show the obviously flooded areas. 2nd shows it without the measuring boxes.
Here's two high resolution NASA Worldview images for comparison
Left. Satellite image from October 6 2021 for comparison.
Right. Satellite image for today.
A larger image allows you to see more clearly the floodwaters in yellow brown on the LHS of this image.
This area in particular is full of big cities.
I think the worst flooding however will be further south in the South East around Karachi and Hyderabad - where it has been raining very heavily continuously for 17 days.
This area in North West India also appears to be extremely flooded. It has also had heavy rain continuously over the 17 day period.
Conclusions: 2/13
EVE OF THE WAR
- 20/8 TPLF asks WFP for 12 Fuel Tankers in a letter
- 22/8 TPLF takes fuel
- 23/8 Dr Tedros does not tweet apart from one @WHO RT - which is unusual.
Conclusions: 3/13
DAY OF THE WAR
- 24/8 @DrTedros tweets about “unimaginable cruelty” in Tigray at 1.23 am in the morning.
- 24/8 @unspokesperson briefs on WFP fuel theft
- 25/8 UN briefs media again and appears on CNN
Thread taking a look at @DrTedros's Tweets in the lead up to the resumption of war by the TPLF . Focusing on this one from August 25th, which appears to be a coded message to his TPLF comrades.
Here are his tweets from August 10th - August 19th. His usual fare, amplifying reports that he thinks are positive towards the TPLF side, he must not have read @BerheLucy's report though, as it isn't.
Then on the day that the war started - 24/8 - he posts this tweet at 1.23am in the morning. Referencing an AFP report posted 17/8 by Yahoo News.
The report is based on his WHO briefing of 14th August when he said the west was racist wrt Tigray.
The number of affected people has climbed rapidly today as the storm finally appears to be coming to an end. The latest number is 45 Million severely effected people. But some of the most effected areas in the mountains of Afganistan & Pakistan are inaccessible.
At least 145 bridges have been washed away and 1000s of KMs of roads.
This was broadcast on August 23rd? Are you sure about that @iyoba4u. he day before the war started. And the day before the UN raised the matter in its daily briefing. I presume this is right. Ethiopia wasn't even mentioned in the UN Briefing that day >> press.un.org/en/2022/db2208…
This lines up with Tronvoll's released document. Which shows the TPLF made their written request to WFP on 14/12/2014 - two days earlier.
This - broadcast on the 23rd of August now looks like part of an attempt by UNSG and @UNSpokesperson to stop TPLF's war from starting.
This also suggests that both the US and UN possibly knew TPLF was going to start a war on the 24th or thereabouts - and did not call upon them not to do so publicly - when they had the chance on the 23rd.
US Secretary of State @SecBlinken issued his statement on the 24th.