Microwave satellite imagery shows the eye of Chapalla coming ashore at 2:34 am Yemen time with a direct hit of the strongest winds, waves and storm surge on the city of Mukalla and its 300,000 people.
Category 3 cyclone Chapala, enters the Gulf of Aden heading towards Yemen's coastal city of Mukalla.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) forces quietly took over Mukalla, the ancient Yemen port city of 300,000 on the Gulf of Aden, in April, with the backing of Saudi Arabia. AQAP quietly ceded power to a coalition of local Sunni tribal and religious leaders, the Hadramout National Council (HNC). By ceding control to the HNC, AQAP kept the peace in the Hadramout region of this war torn nation, except for the occasional American drone strike on AQAP leadership. However, the peace is about to be broken by the most powerful force in the history of this region, the force of water, both the surging ocean, driven by an unprecedented category 3 cyclone with 120 mph winds in the Gulf of Aden, and the boulder crushing power of extreme flash floods from extraordinarily heavy rains in the mountains above.
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Mukalla Yemen estuary at night. This coastal city is not designed for a storm surge and very high surf because there is no record of a strong tropical cyclone ever striking these shores.
Desert air and land interaction has started stripping off Cyclone Chapala's outer bands but its powerful inner core remains intact over the warm waters of the Gulf of Aden. Chapala's winds will weaken to around 100 mph according to the latest JTWC forecast as it comes ashore west of Mukalla. The strongest winds will strike a less populated area than Mukalla, but 30 foot waves have already been set in motion towards Mukalla's coastline. They will bunch together in wave sets which bring surges of water into coastal areas that would usually be protected. Moreover, the oblique approach of Chapalla's strong leading edge to the coastline will build up a large storm surge into the ancient coastal port. Engineers had no reason to build defenses against such a large surge because there is no historical precedent for anything like it. NOAA's general estimate of the storm surge of a category 3 storm is 9 to 12 feet, about 3 meters. Dr. Jeff Masters noted that the steep drop off of the submarine topography offshore of Mukalla may lessen the storm surge. This factor will be offset by the lack of barriers to incoming swells. Long period waves lose energy as they travel through shallow water because the bottom of the wave drags on the seafloor. Waves coming into Mukalla through deep water will lose little intensity to bottom drag.
Mukalla, Yemen, city of 300,000 is vulnerable to high surf and flooding from water and mud pouring off the highlands above because it is bounded by steep topography.
Record high water temperatures and ocean heat content have made this intense tropical storm possible. The Rapid heating of the Indian Ocean over the past decade has changed the climate and increased both the number and intensity of tropical cyclones above historic levels.
Unprecedented Cat4 Cyclone Chapala looking south from the Space Station above the Arabian peninsula threatens Yemen on 31Oct2015. The cyclone, with a distinct hurricane strength eye, was misidentified by
Scott Kelly as TS Ashoba.
The Hadramaut has a history as old as the migrations of humans out of Africa. The Hadramaut valley inland of the coastal mountains was warm, humid and fertile 5,000 to 10,000 years ago when northern hemisphere late spring and early summer polar insulation was strongest. In fact, the whole Arabian peninsula was green. The the Arctic cooled as the amount of spring and summer insolation declined. The monsoons retreated southwards in Africa and the Arabian peninsula dried out. Humans retreated to the inland and coastal valleys below Yemen's coastal mountains to places where steady sources of groundwater flowed through the gravel beds of intermittent streams. Date palms were strategically planted to slow the water and catch the mud in flash floods. Dwellings were build above flood levels.
River of Dates, Hadramaut, Yemen (Click all images to enlarge)
People discovered that the mud made strong bricks when mixed with straw and dried in the hot dry sun. They discovered that white crystalline limestone boulders would make beautiful white plaster when heated into a powder. They build skyscrapers in the desert out of mud. The lime plaster made strong durable white surfaces that artisans worked into palatial features. The lime in the plaster bonded with the mud bricks making them more durable like cement. With occasional exterior plaster refinishing the mud brick skyscrapers have survived for hundreds of years.
Old Shibam north, Hadramaut, Yemen. Note the mud is accumulating in the wash and note that one of the buildings has collapsed back into mud because its plaster finish was not maintained.
The architecture, craftsmanship and artistry of mud and plaster is stunning. This 50 minute high quality video of the architecture of mud is as good as any hour on TV. Please watch in full screen high resolution on youtube for the best quality to see how the world heritage site of Shibam has been restored and maintained by expert traditional craftsmen.
The architecture and artistry of the Hadramaut craftsmen is world class. Tarim's Al Muhdhar Mosque's white lime plastered minaret is 175 feet high, one of the highest earthen structures in the world.
Mudhar mosque in Tarim city, Hadramut, Yemen.
The Hadramaut's architecture ranges from sublime to magical.
Khaila Palace tourist hotel on the road to Mukalla in a deep canyon. The palace is built above the path of frequent flash floods.
Human habitation and agriculture in the Hadramaut has been designed for a very dry climate where the highlands receive 5 to 10 inches of rain a year and the coastal strip under 2 inches a year. Nothing has been designed for the extreme rainfall of a cyclone of hurricane strength hitting the mountains and dissected plateaus of the Hadramaut.
Yemen's Average annual rainfall ranges from 0 to 2 inches in coastal areas to five to ten inches in the southern mountains and ten to twenty inches in the western mountains.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Yemen's Hadramaut face unprecedented floods as NOAA's latest HWRF forecast of tropical cyclone Chapala predicts 2 to 3 feet of rain over the next 4 days in the mountains above Mukalla.
NOAA's HWRF model predicts 8 to 32 inches of rain will fall over Yemen's southern highlands above the port city of Mukalla and above the inland Hadramaut valley.
The last time southern Yemen had this type of precipitation event was likely thousands of years ago when the climate was much wetter and the ocean was as warm as it is today. The people of the Hadramaut could not have anticipated the rapid warming of the ocean over the past decade and they could not anticipate this amount of rain. Yemen faces an unprecedented catastrophe over the next 2 days as the waters come from sea and from land.