Cyclone Chapala Strongest Storm to Hit Yemen
As an update to my blog Friday... according to our AccuWeather.com story, Cyclone Chapala is about to make landfall in Yemen as the strongest tropical cyclone on record there (second-strongest in the Arabian Sea). Here's a satellite image from this morning:
The previous landfalling cyclone in Yemen (mainland) was a tropical storm in 2011. The island of Socotra off Yemen's coast (shown in the satellite image above) was likely devastated by the storm, spending several hours in the eyewall. BBC has some news about the island, which hosts some of the world's rarest plant species, which could have sustained heavy damage.
The image I showed in Friday's blog indicated that only two hurricanes have passed closed to the island and one tropical storm made landfall. Wikipedia says the island has frequent high seas, but one has to wonder if they have ever faced anything like this storm, which would have been a Category 3 storm with 110-knot sustained winds when it passed near Socotra.
Satellite images of the Middle East aren't as plentiful as the U.S., but the CIMSS blog uploaded some excellent pictures this morning, including this one just after the eyewall passed over the island.
For updated information, please see our story:
