Giovanna hits Madagascar; major damage likely
Tropical Cyclone Giovanna powered ashore along the east coast of Madagascar as a destructive Category 3 storm with 125 - 130 mph winds at 22 UTC last night. Winds at the coastal city of Tamatave, 70 miles north-northeast of where the center came ashore, peaked at 52 mph, gusting to 71 mph. Giovanna is moving west across the island at 17 mph, and passed just south of the capital of Antananarivo as a Category 1 storm at 8 am local time Tuesday morning. The eyewall missed Antananarivo , and the peak winds in the city were 38 mph, gusting to 55 mph. Microwave satellite imagery from the Navy Research Lab in Monterrey showed that Giovanna had rainfall rates of up to one inch per hour at landfall, and it is likely that the storm dumped 5 - 10 inches of rain along much of its path. The heaviest rains fell on deforested mountain slopes that drain into some of the most densely populated regions on the island, so major flood damage is likely. Heavy wind and storm surge damage undoubtedly occurred where the core of the storm hit the island, as well.
Figure 1. Visible image from NASA's Terra satellite of Tropical Cyclone Giovanna over Madagascar, taken at 7:15 UTC Tuesday February 14, 2012. Seven hours previous to this time, Giovanna was a Category 2 storm with 110 mph winds, but had probably weakened to a Category 1 storm by the time this picture was taken. Image credit: NASA.
The forecast
Passage over the rugged terrain of Madagascar has significantly weaken Giovanna, and the cyclone will move into the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and Mozambique as a tropical storm later today. Latest computer model forecasts from the GFS and ECMWF models suggest Giovanna may reintensify over water, and swing around and pass very close to the south tip of Madagascar early next week. Meanwhile, Madagascar must also keep an eye on Tropical Cyclone Thirteen, which is gathering strength over the waters to the east of the island, and is on a course that will bring it close to Madagascar this weekend.
Figure 2. Microwave satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Giovanna taken at 02:44 UTC Tuesday, February 14, 2012. The cyclone was still a well-organized Category 2 storm at this time, five hours after landfall. Image credit: Navy Research Lab, Monterrey.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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In another time Homeland Security would have been onto you.
OK, now I'm dying to know why! Are they afraid I'll use the yarn as wadding for my musket???
On the morning of January 25, 2012, a slow moving cold front pushed through Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana. Ahead of this front, a strong squall line developed and by midday began producing embedded tornados as it pushed across the area. A Tornado Watch was issued by the Storm Prediction Center at 7:55 AM for the entire area through 3:00 PM on the afternoon of the 25th. The watch was eventually reissued through 9:00 PM.
A total of 12 tornados were confirmed over the course of the afternoon and evening. Additionally, another 4 reports of severe thunderstorm damage as well as 7 reports of strong marine winds were reported over the course of the event.
A total of 32 warnings were issued during the event. These warnings consisted of 9 Tornado warnings, 13 Severe Thunderstorm Warnings and 10 Special Marine Warnings.
I could use one with reindeer on it.
Not ruh-roh..... more like WOOT GFS now on board for snow!!!!
haha, yeah that gives me 8-10... thats a little much. Would love to see some consistency now for the 0z.
Link
More like 3-4, 8-10 is a little much...
EDIT for my area, not VA Beach
Once I am north of the blue line it shows about ..6-.8 of precip. At 1:12 that would be 8-10. Im excited to see, it, ready for at least one snow storm to track!
You may be right but it doesn't get cold enough down there to snow in VA Beach until the end of the storm:
Link
35 STEM and medical combined.
9 agriculture background.
So, who makes informed decisions about infrastructure or technology?
Besides just the capitalistic "invisible hand" bunk?
Who knows how to make all the things we use and need?
Employees might know how to make one or two components of something, or maybe less. Maybe they know one or two steps in a process.
A few years ago, I was obsessed with cyrstals and learning about the technologies we use to grow useful crystals, such as Corundum (saphire,) for use in lasers and tools and things. I spent days on end studying all of the processes involved, and to be honest forgot most of it anyway. But I was thinking, just this one area of science and technology, you could study for years and never be up-to-date on it.
I had been studying it because I was trying to figure out a way of doing self-assembly for macroscopic machines made from materials in the solar system. I thought some sort of vapor deposition would be promising. Make even macroscopic components from artificial crystals that are coated in metal alloys, so that you have compressive strength of the crystal protected from fracture by the coat of metal alloy, but I digress...
*ahem*
So how are we going to learn the future of atomically precise technologies for better materials, including composites, and more efficient machines?
It has gotten to the point where it takes a person their entire life just to learn what the previous generation has made, and really it's not even possible any more. You pretty much just have to "let it go" and not even think about, I guess.
I seem to have OCD or something, and try to cram it all in, even though I know I can't.
But where is all this going? We don't seem to get much about this generation gap from our leaders.
I mean no offense, but we are in danger of "idiocracy", where we aren't even going to understand our technology without asking the technology itself.
Already, I rely on Wikipedia, dictionarydotcom, and Google as if it was my own long term memory or something. It's scary.
A lot of other people in my age group and downwards seem to just try to drown out thinking about it with drugs or alcohol.
Good news in what sense?
Good news for companies that want to drill in the Arctic for oil and for companies that want to ship goods/oil through the area, I suppose.
Bad news for the planet. Ice extent is roughly tied with the worst year on record. Thickness/volume is even lower than the worst year. About 15% lower.
That grey band illustrates two standard deviations from the 1979 - 2000 mean. Ice extent is way past two SDs below historical average.
Unfortunately it looks like Arctic sea ice is on its deathbed. We're sitting along side watching the end unfold...
I have charts for that. Have you seen the Happy Reindeer chart? Too funny, but not for children.
starting to look better for a small snowstorm in VA
I'm not sure what to expect from the winter sea ice and snow packs once the first september meltdown happens.
It seems like greenland's melt rate should increase rapidly due to the additional albedo feedback over larger areas and much longer time periods each year.
But maybe the worst thing in the short term, as far as the arctic circle goes, is the Methane torches from the permafrost. If it was so bad last year, imagine if all the sea ice melts by 2015. The Methane torches might be 100 times worse, even when last year was 100 times worse than anything previous.
They watched some plumes for a while at Barrow last year, but ultimately they didn't end up being too bad globally, once they mixed into the atmosphere, but the spike on the local flask measurement was like 250ppb above previous highest spike. Imagine if the torches get ten or a hundred times worst over the next several years?
Winter's not over. I'm hoping I'll get one big snowstorm before Spring comes.
Vikings! The berserkers were really bad.
You upset because you haven't gotten any snow and you're in North Carolina... Imagine how I feel getting almost no snow in Massachusetts! This winter's been awful!
The "Ring of Fire" is very active today, that is for sure.
I'm interested in this one... looks like some development is possible, but more imporantly it will be a very slow mover... definite flooding concern for countries around it
I think I'm gonna move to Colorado when I grow up...They get a lot of snow.
On second thought, if I want to work at the National Hurricane Center, that means I'll have to move to Miami, doesn't it? :\
I am also in North Carolina. give me a thunderstorm and i happy :D
I could do without the heat and humidity.
If GW gets bad, maybe I'll move to Alaska. I like snow, but not snowed in. So if GW gets that bad, Alaska might be perfect.
2012 February 14 22:34:39 UTC
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