Update: Midnight Thursday
Rain and moderate winds commenced in Muscat. Heavy rain and strong winds at Masirah Island and Al Sharqiya coast. Latest track shows cyclone weakening slightly from Cat 4 to Cat 3.
It's still predicted to skirt the eastern coast over the next 36 hrs (rather than heading to Muscat), bringing Muscat just lots of rain and wind tonight and tomorrow. You can see the extent of the rain clouds will easily encompass Muscat by Friday.
At least a strong turn north has happened, although it may head NW again for a while before (hopefully) heading NNE.
If you're in Muscat, expect rain and (obviously) stay clear of wadis and places that flooded during Gonu. If you live in low-lying parts of Ghubra, Qurm, Ruwi, etc, you should have already moved your cars to high ground! If not, I'd think about doing it now as it'll probably now keep raining until Saturday...
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The latest info from the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center has gone back to predicting Cyclone Phet taking an early turn up the coast, making landfall in Oman and heading up to Ras Al Had and then on to Pakistan. The turn has already started it seems too, which is great news.
There may be therefore slightly less need to desperately rush to trample over the other masses engaged in the process of emptying the shelves of Lulu in your attempts to secure the necessities of life (which are apparently potato chips. swiffle long-life cakes, ghee, HFCS, bottled water, 100s of kgs of rice and VIMTO)
If the cyclone does this, Muscat will be spared most of it, with just a bit of strong wind and moderate rain, but nothing at all like Gonu. Masirah Island through to Ras Al Had will be hit hard though, and evacuations there continue in earnest. With half the Cyclone over land it should also start to weaken as its life force of warm ocean and humid sea air is progressively restricted.
At the moment it's very pleasant in Muscat, with cool temperatures and a fresh breeze. There's a bit of a swell in the ocean, but nothing out of the ordinary yet. A nice afternoon.
HM has also chipped in by giving us all a day off on Saturday.
Makes one wish we had this sort of weather more regularly, doesn't it? Cheers.
Tomorrow I'll get around to a review of the Hi! FM comedy night at the Crown Plaza yesterday.
In response to email queries, the model in the previous post was one Miranda Kerr, an Aussie who astute readers may recognise from the wonderful Victoria's Secret catalog. This link shows snaps from the recent Gentleman's Quarterly photo shoot. Recommended.
sorry guys but i disagree, (I'm in weather) this cyclone is just as bad as Gonu if not worse, the reason? Its still a cat2/1 Gonu was downgarded to a Tropical storm by this stage, secondly Its moving, as a whole, slower than Gonu, that means its around longer and will just keep dumping that rain, bottom line is there is nowhere for the rain to drain away here, it has to go through the mountains and will eventually end up coming out at the coast,My prediction is that Qurum will once again be an open swimming pool. Its true that lots of shoreing up and diverting work went into the wadis etc but still too little to late, met a guy from the municipality last month and questioned him about some of the design builds to cope with heavy rains, he said and i quote, "well its not as if were ever going to have another Gonu in my lifetime" unquote. Guess he will be flapping now. Would like to be wrong but i dont think so.
ReplyDeleteIt's looking ugly. Over 230 mm of rain on Friday and Saturday :S . Good luck everyone, I hope everything will be alright! Keep us posted if you can!
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