lonecloud on June 5, 2007 - 11:29am
This is very interesting. I've been looking at satellite imagery for over 10 years now, and I'm blown away by GONU.
I've put together a sequence of images showing GONU's development. here:
fractalfreak.com
This table (start upper left) begins on May 30, through June 4. Four samples per day. Understand that it's very difficult for Cyclones to form west of India (they are common east of India). Cyclones and tropical storms cannot form within 10 degrees of the equator as the coriolis effect is not strong enough to allow them to organize (The southern tip of India is at ~10 N) If you look at the geography you'll see there's not much ocean above 10 north, and only a relatively small fetch of water before you hit Arabia/Africa, heading west. GONU started off as a disturbance off the western coast of India at about 15 north. After festering for a couple of days and being reinforced by several waves coming off of India GONU finally started to organize in early June - perfectly placed for further development.
Even more impressive has been the explosive development since June 4. From sci.geo.meteorology.
First Category 5 Hurricane of 2007, GONU is Katrina-Wilma-Monica
Strength, 162 mph winds, 195 mph gusts. It's the strongest ever
recorded in Indian Ocean Basin, following Monica strongest ever in
Australian waters, following Wilma strongest ever in Atlantic Basin,
following Rita strongest ever in Gulf of Mexico.
The string of recent record breaking tropical storms and increasingly bizarre weather continues.
Also it's still very early in the season, especially for such a strong storm. Just a couple of months ago all the cyclones in the Indian ocean were in the southern hemisphere and affecting Madagascar and Africa.
It will be interesting to see how much damage and disruption this thing causes.. hard to say, nothing like it's ever happened before.
theoildrum.com
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A BBC reader from Muscat wrote:
I have lived in Oman for nearly 10 years and I have never experienced something like this. The schools are closed, we have been told the water and power is going to be cut. We have also been told to fill buckets and bathtubs with water and to stock up on food supplies for at least 5 days! The houses in Oman are not strong enough to withstand the winds and the rain is pouring down inside our homes. Even though we know we are going to be safe, there will be alot of damage done and it is not safe outside the house.
Andre Waerness-Vold, Muscat, Oman |
