[Tuike]

Communications down after category 5 Cyclone Harold hits Vanuatu -guardian
A category five cyclone has made landfall on the Pacific nation of Vanuatu, causing damage across large parts of the country, as it tries to prepare for the coronavirus outbreak. Cyclone Harold made landfall on the north and west of the country on Monday, after spending Sunday sitting off the country’s west coast, gathering strength. The Vanuatu meteorology and geo-hazards department warned that hurricane force winds, reaching up to 235km/h were expected across parts of the country on Monday, as well as heavy rainfalls, flash flooding and “very rough to phenomenal seas”.

[Azothius]

2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season Expected to Be More Active Than Usual, The Weather Company Outlook Says

https://www.wunderground.com/article/st ... =hp-slot-4

An above-average number of tropical storms and hurricanes is more likely if temperatures in the main development region (MDR) between Africa and the Caribbean Sea are warmer than average. Conversely, below-average ocean temperatures can lead to fewer tropical systems than if waters were warmer.

Assuming atmospheric factors are favorable, warmer waters in the MDR allow tropical waves – the formative engines that can eventually become tropical storms – to get closer to the Caribbean and the U.S.

The prevalence of wind shear and dry air across the Atlantic will also need to be watched over the next six to eight months.

If La Niña does kick in, as many forecasters expect, and the atmosphere responds to it, there could be less wind shear and more favorable conditions for hurricane growth toward the end of the season.

How much dry air rolls off the coast of Africa will also need to be monitored. Even if water temperatures are very warm and there is little wind shear, dry air can still disrupt developing tropical cyclones and even prohibit their birth.

Hurricanes need a precise set of ingredients to come together in order for them to fester, and those ingredients will need to be monitored this year.

Crawford also noted that computer model forecasts for tropical forcing during the heart of the hurricane season are "strongly suggestive of an active season," and his forecast is similar to the model consensus.

The current situation:

[dohboi]

Thanks, Tu and Az.

This is from Phoenix at asif:

The JTWC has this storm peaking at 125 kt sustained winds in 24 hours. My experience is that agency predictions like these have been very conservative. I won't be shocked if it approaches 150 kts.

https://www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/jtwc.html

Note, the deadliest cyclone in human history was Bhola in this region in 1970. Estimated 300k-500k lost.

Edit: imagine the stress on authorities tasked with trying to strike the right balance between both limiting covid spread and storm related suffering. This storm is looking very ominous.

[REAL Green]

01B AMPHAN
As of 06:00 UTC May 18, 2020:

Location: 13.6°N 86.4°E
Maximum Winds: 140 kt
Minimum Central Pressure: 911 mb

Nice Maps:
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/storminfo/#05L

[dohboi]

Thanks, RG. Also note:

The JTWC 900Z has Amphan at 140 kts sustained winds, which I believe ties the record for the Bay of Bengal. That's just past the Cat 5 threshold.

MAXIMUM SIGNIFICANT WAVE HEIGHT AT 180600Z IS 52 FEET.

https://www.metoc.navy.mil/jtwc/products/io0120web.txt

!!

[Newfie]

Significant Wave Height means 2/3’s if the waves are smaller, 1/3 are bigger.

Last summers Dorian kicked up the largest ever recorded wave off the SW coast of Newfoundland at 100’ even. They check the instruments, they were properly calibrated.

TS Andrew is making its way up the coast.

[dohboi]

Thanks for that info, Newf. So a third of waves will be over 52 feet!

Is that just going to be out at sea, or are they going to get anything like that height hitting the very flat and very densely populated areas it is forecast to hit?

[dohboi]

Cyclone Amphan: More Than 1 Million To Be Evacuated In India, Bangladesh

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News ... 589822288/

May 18 (UPI) --

More than 1 million people at the India-Bangladesh border are preparing to evacuate before Super Cyclone Amphan, which is predicted to make landfall Wednesday evening.

The Indian Meteorological Department said Amphan, which developed in the Bay of Bengal, will reach wind speeds Monday of 167 miles per hour, and will arrive in the northeastern Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal and on the coast of Bangladesh, near the Ganges River Delta.

Meteorologists predicted Monday that the storm will lose some intensity as it hits land, but could cause storm surges as high as 30 feet.

SN Pradhan, director general of the Indian National Disaster Response Force, said that on top of the coronavirus epidemic, the cyclone presented a "dual challenge" to safely house evacuees while taking steps to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Many migrant workers returning to Odisha and West Bengal for the national pandemic lockdown have been housed in temporary quarantine centers which are now in the path of the cyclone.

In Bangladesh, surges of high winds, rain and flooding from the cyclone are expected to strike the Cox's Bazar refugee settlement, where more than 1 million Rohingya refugees have gathered in primitive conditions after fleeing persecution in Myanmar.

https://weather.com/health/coronavirus/ ... irus-cases

Amphan is the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, when a super storm hit the Orissa coast, killing more than 9,000 people.

:::::::::::::::::::::::
And for the bigger picture:

Long-Term Data Show Hurricanes are Getting Stronger

https://phys.org/news/2020-05-long-term ... onger.html

In almost every region of the world where hurricanes form, their maximum sustained winds are getting stronger. That is according to a new study by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Center for Environmental Information and University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, who analyzed nearly 40 years of hurricane satellite imagery.

"Through modeling and our understanding of atmospheric physics, the study agrees with what we would expect to see in a warming climate like ours," says James Kossin, a NOAA scientist based at UW-Madison and lead author of the paper, which is published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research builds on Kossin's previous work, published in 2013, which identified trends in hurricane intensification across a 28-year data set. However, says Kossin, that timespan was less conclusive and required more hurricane case studies to demonstrate statistically significant results.

Kossin's previous research has shown other changes in hurricane behavior over the decades, such as where they travel and how fast they move. In 2014, he identified poleward migrations of hurricanes, where tropical cyclones are travelling farther north and south, exposing previously less-affected coastal populations to greater risk.

In 2018, he demonstrated that hurricanes are moving more slowly across land due to changes in Earth's climate. This has resulted in greater flood risks as storms hover over cities and other areas, often for extended periods of time.

James P. Kossin el al., "Global increase in major tropical cyclone exceedance probability over the past four decades," PNAS (2020).
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020 ... 1920849117

[dohboi]

Evacuating a million plus people during a pandemic is going to be...interesting

[dohboi]

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic:U.S., Outer Banks of North Carolina

Brian McNoldy on Twitter:

"You can't make this up... #Arthur 2020 is the 4th Arthur to scrape the Outer Banks.

It's most like the 1996 version, but this is weird. (Technically, the 2002 version wasn't quite a named storm yet when over the Outer Banks.)”


https://mobile.twitter.com/bmcnoldy/sta ... 9051977739

[Newfie]

Evacuating a million plus people during a pandemic is going to be...interesting

Why, they are not getting sick anyway. 2 deaths /million last I looked.

[dohboi]

As Reagan might say, 'There you go again, Newf, being cavalier about the sickness and deaths of brown people"

In certain circumstances--people in close quarters for a prolonged period of time, such as would likely happen during an evacuation-- the death rate can be more like over 30,000 per million:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... r-outbreak

[Newfie]

Thanks for that info, Newf. So a third of waves will be over 52 feet!

Is that just going to be out at sea, or are they going to get anything like that height hitting the very flat and very densely populated areas it is forecast to hit?

Out at sea. They are attenuated as the approach shore. Much of the East coast is very shallow very far off. Some places 40 miles it is still only a couple of Hundred feet deep. A few miles off it may be 60’.

You don’t want to be crossing the Gulf Stream or on the edge of the continental drop.

[Newfie]

As Reagan might say, 'There you go again, Newf, being cavalier about the sickness and deaths of brown people"

In certain circumstances--people in close quarters for a prolonged period of time, such as would likely happen during an evacuation-- the death rate can be more like over 30,000 per million:

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... r-outbreak

I haven’t the foggiest idea of what you are blathering about.

Try using explanatory rhetoric.

[dohboi]

...storm surge could rise to around five metres in the Sundarbans delta, home to around four million people.

"Our estimate is that some areas 10-15 kilometres from the coast could be inundated"...

...A lot of houses have been washed away...

Something like four million evacuees.

Amazingly, only 14 reported dead so far.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/ ... 55647.html

[dirtyharry]

...storm surge could rise to around five metres in the Sundarbans delta, home to around four million people.

"Our estimate is that some areas 10-15 kilometres from the coast could be inundated"...

...A lot of houses have been washed away...

Something like four million evacuees.

Amazingly, only 14 reported dead so far.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/ ... 55647.html

In the meanwhile temperatures in New Delhi touch 44.1 degree celsuis and are expected to remain so for the next 5 days . Crazy .

[dohboi]

More than 80 killed in India and Bangladesh as Cyclone Amphan heaps misery on coronavirus-hit areas

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/21/weather/ ... index.html

[Newfie]

Their death rate is 2-3/million. Somehow I think they have bigger problems.

This is just another example of piss poor reporting. Linking everything to Covid is the “in thing to do.”

That’s not a swipe at you Dohboi, you just linked the article. I’m just pointing out how the news try’s to hype the virus at every opportunity.

[dirtyharry]

...storm surge could rise to around five metres in the Sundarbans delta, home to around four million people.

"Our estimate is that some areas 10-15 kilometres from the coast could be inundated"...

...A lot of houses have been washed away...

Something like four million evacuees.

Amazingly, only 14 reported dead so far.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/ ... 55647.html

In the meanwhile temperatures in New Delhi touch 44.1 degree celsuis and are expected to remain so for the next 5 days . Crazy .

Now midnight in New Delhi ,the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius .

[Newfie]

OUCH.