Oman, Yemen on alert for ‘Mekunu’ fury
MET CENTRE REJECTS REPORTS THAT TROPICAL STORM WILL HIT DUBAI
Tropical storm ‘Mekunu’ is heading towards Salalah and will turn into a Category 2 cyclone in the coming 36 hours, according to Oman’s Meteorology Department.
A Category 2 cyclone’s strongest winds are destructive with typical gusts over open flat land of 125 - 164 km/h.
The residents of Salalah, Oman’s second-largest city with a population of about 200,000, are bracing for the cyclone that will make a landfall there between tomorrow and on Saturday, with maximum sustained winds of about 180 km/h.
The centre of the cyclone is about 570km from Salalah, while its nearest clouds are about 80km from the Omani landmass. Yemen’s Socotra island has already felt ‘Mekunu’ impact as the storm approaches the island with heavy rain and wind.
In Abu Dhabi, the National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) said there will be no landfall in the UAE. Refuting reports that the storm will hit Dubai, the weather bureau reiterated the path of the cyclone is still towards Oman and Yemen. “There will be no direct impact on the UAE,” Mohammad Al Alebri, director of Metoerology Department at NCM said.
High temperatures in mountains will trigger more clouds over the eastern and southern parts of the UAE.
Apowerful cyclone in the Arabian Sea is churning towards the coasts of Oman and Yemen, where forecasters anticipate it will make landfall on Saturday.
Forecasters at India’s Meteorological Department said yesterday that Cyclone Mekunu will intensify into what they described as a “very severe cyclonic storm.”
They say the cyclone is now some 570 kilometres off the coast of Salalah, a southern Omani port city near the sultanate’s border with Yemen.
Forecasters expect the storm will reach the coast on Saturday morning, with winds gusting as high as 180km/h.
Authorities in Oman say they are prepared for the storm to make landfall, warning it could cause flooding and damage to homes.
In less than a week’s time, two tropical cyclones will have battered the Middle East in highly unusual locations.
Tropical cyclone Sagar slammed into northwestern Somalia over the weekend, after forming in the Gulf of Aden, killing at least 31 people in the region.
The storm made landfall farther west in the North Indian Ocean basin than any previous storm on record. Now, a second cyclone has spun up just to the east, due south of the Arabian Peninsula.
The rapidly organising storm is eyeing Oman’s southern coast, where it may make landfall at hurricane-strength on Saturday.
Heatwave
The Joint Typhoon Warning Centre says the cyclone is over very warm waters, between about 87 and 90 degrees.
“Extremely warm sea surface temperatures and favourable environmental conditions will lead to steady intensification,” the centre wrote in its latest update.
Salalah is Oman’s secondlargest city with a population of about 200,000. Assuming the storm remains on its current track, the area can expect torrential rain, damaging winds and dangerously high seas.
Brian McNoldy, Capital Weather Gang’s tropical weather expert, said that since 1980, only three “hurricanestrength” storms have made landfall within 160 kilometres of the Oman-Yemen coast, and none near Salalah.
The sinking air on the storm’s east side may be intensifying a heatwave in Pakistan and northern India, according to Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at Weather.us.