Cyclone Chapala Makes Landfall in Yemen
3 November 2015: Cyclone Chapala made landfall in Yemen this morning and its wreaking havoc on the impoverished nation with increased strength gathered from moving across the Arabian Sea over past few days.
Above is a shot from our StreamerRTSM comprehensive nowcasting visualization tool, showing Cyclone Chapala currently battering the center of Yemen. Its outermost layers are still sitting over the Arabian Sea. Stay tuned to our Global Severe Weather Blog for updates on the storm’s strength, its potentially historic rainfall, and effect it will have on Yemen and the rest of the Middle East.
Our team at Earth Networks has been closely monitoring the cyclone’s path and intensity. Here is a recap from the past few days:
2 November 2015: We continued to monitor Cyclone Chapala as it inched even closer to the coast of Yemen.
The above image shows over 1,300 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes detected by our ENcast forecasting system within the storm on the island of Socotra, the coast of Yemen, and the Gulf of Aden in between. Not only is the storm expected do damage with high winds and record breaking rainfall amounts, but the high amount of lightning strikes could also destroy buildings and injure people as the storm makes landfall.
1 November 2015: Cyclone Chapala gained strength as it made its way towards Yemen. The storm was projected to bring up to 500mm of rain on the coastal city of Mukalla, more than seven times the city’s yearly average. Meteorologists predicted that the cyclone will maintain hurricane-strength wind and rain when it makes landfall sometime in the next few days.
The above image shows lightning within Chapala making its way towards the island of Socotora, just to the south of Yemen.
