In records going back 50 years, far northern Mozambique has no record of storms of even minimal hurricane strength, much less a system as powerful as Kenneth.
The landfall location (12°S) is quite close to the equator, in a latitude range where it becomes more difficult for cyclones to gather enough atmospheric spin to develop. Only a couple of tropical depressions and tropical storms have made landfall this far north in Mozambique or in Tanzania in the several decades of satellite coverage.
Kenneth ranks among the strongest landfalls on record for the entire African mainland.
Cyclone Leon-Eline struck Mozambique on Feb. 26, 2000, with top one-minute sustained winds of 134 mph as assessed by JTWC. Off the mainland, Cyclones Hary (2000) and Gafilo (2004) both struck Madagascar at Category 5 strength, with top sustained winds of 160 mph, according to JTWC.
Heavy rain and winds across northern Mozambique on Friday brought warnings from the UN of "massive flooding" to come in the next few days as Cyclone Kenneth moves slowly inland over northern Mozambique.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was possible 600 millimeters (almost 24 inches) of rain could fall over the next few days in some areas. This would be double the amount of rain that fell on the central city of Beira during the cyclone which hit in March.
Officials told BBC Hindi that around 800,000 people are in the process of being evacuated. Nearly 100,000 of them will be evacuated from Puri, a city in Orissa, as authorities believe that this is where the storm will hit hardest. Puri is also home to the 858-year-old Jagannath temple - officials are also worried about the impact it could have on the historic building.
...storm surge could push the already swollen Mississippi River precariously close to the tops of levees that protect New Orleans – in what will be their greatest test since the catastrophic failure during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.This would be the highest crest on the Mississippi River at New Orleans since 1950.
At least 28 people have been killed and more than a million forced from their homes as Typhoon Lekima hit China, according to state media.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49471093Mr Trump asked why the US couldn't drop a bomb into the eye of the storm to stop it from making landfall, news site Axios said.
The NOAA says that using nuclear weapons on a hurricane "might not even alter the storm" and the "radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas".
The difficulty with using explosives to change hurricanes, it says, is the amount of energy needed.
The heat release of a hurricane is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.
dohboi wrote:If Dorian makes a b-line for Mara Lago and strengthens to a cat 5 (or ^), tTump's gonna be sorely tempted to try out his little hair-brained scheme.
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