Chapala weakening; Dalkut records highest rainfall

According to a tweet by the Public Authority for Civil Aviation’s (PACA) meteorology department, the rainfall recorded until 1pm on Monday at Dalkut was 13.6mm, followed by Shaleem with 5.4mm, Mirbat 3.8mm, Marmul 3.4mm and Sadah 3.2mm. Salalah recorded the lowest rainfall of 1.8mm.

Dalkut also recorded the strongest surface winds speed according to the meteorology department with 30 knots (55.56 km/h). Sadah saw the second highest recording at 25 knots (46.3 km/h).

“Chapala remains a category 2 storm with the possibility of downgrading to a category 1 in the coming hours as its intensity weakens,” said the tweet from PACDA Met Department. According to Reuters, the cyclone packing winds has killed three people and injured scores on the Yemeni island of Socotra on Monday. “Three people were killed, around 100 have been injured,” the report said quoting a local official, without describing the causes of death.

Mohammed Alarqbi of the Socotra Environment Office said torrential rains had pounded coastal villages. “Around 1,500 families have fled to the interior and to the mountains. There’s absolutely no help coming from the outside.”

Situated in the Arabian Sea and slightly larger than Majorca or Rhode Island, isolated Socotra is home to hundreds of exotic plant species found nowhere else on earth.

In an update at 0900 GMT, the UN World Meteorological Organization said Chapala, was an “extremely severe cyclonic storm” with sustained winds of 160-185 kmh (100-115 mph), but would weaken gradually to “very severe” over the next six hours.

Sea conditions around the centre of the storm were “phenomenal”, the WMO update said.