Rain Soaks South Africa Hinterland

--Southern Africa:

The bands of strong, gusty thunderstorms that blew up over southern Africa Wednesday have settled into a belt of rain and thunder across the South African heartland as of Thursday. Here is how this looked via infrared imagery (from the South African Weather Service site) earlier Thursday:

Once again, there is no map overlay, but the daytime warmth (darkest gray on the infrared band) helps to outline southern Africa, especially to the west in areas of clear sky.

As of Thursday evening, rain and thunderstorms have shifted to an area of eastern Free State and western Mapumalanga north into southeastern Botswana. Thus, Gauteng and the cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria have gotten in on the downpours.

Rainfall through early evening was 2.6 inches (66 mm) at Vryburg, 2.1 inches (52 mm) at Potchefstroom and 1.7 inches (43 mm) at Pretoria.

--South Asia:

The overall tilt is as was described Wednesday: Westerlies across Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and far-northern India bringing drying and a slow withdrawal (to the south and east) of the South West Monsoon and its rain. And this concept seems to hold with little in the way of excitement through the next five to seven days. At this time, it would seem that between one third and one half of the Subcontinent will be outside of the sway of the Monsoon.

--Far East:

The JTWC has an advisory indicating that a tropical storm may take shape by late Friday, local time. This would be over the southern Philippine Sea east of the Philippines. There is certainly a sprawling area of heavy convective cloud and rain here, although it has some organizing to do before becoming significant storm.

--South America:

Gales roared through the Drake Passage and over southern Patagonia today as an east-bound storm skirted Tierra del Fuego. Highest sustained wind speeds that I saw observed on out database (a rather sparing network) including one of 50 knots (93 kmh) at Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz, Argentina. A gust of 59 knots (107 kmh) at Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, was nearly matched by one (106 kmh) at Rio Gallegos. On the Chilean side, Punta Arenas clocked 51 knots, or 94 kmh. Highest winds in the area may have broken hurricane speed (64 knots, or nearly 120 kmh).

--Antarctica:

High winds raked the Antarctica Peninsula Wednesday night and Thursday. Gales and blinding whiteouts of wind-blown snow were everywhere. Sustained winds (gusts would be higher) were reportedly 68 knots (126 kmh) at Argentina`s General San Martin station and 61 knots (113 kmh) at Chile`s General Bernardo O`Higgins station.

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