Chapala rapidly intensified and had estimated winds as strong as a high-end Category 4 early Friday.

Cyclone Chapala: Current Status

The latest location, estimated wind speed, and infrared satellite image of Cyclone Chapala, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

While direct measurements from reconnaissance aircraft are not available over the Arabian Sea, Chapala's rate of intensification from a high-end tropical storm to a high-end Category 4 storm in 24 hours ending 2 a.m. EDT Friday morning was quite impressive for this part of the world.

Warmer-than-average Arabian Sea water along its path had, in part, allowed for Chapala intensify so rapidly.

Impressive outflow channel N of Cyclone #Chapala. Shows the fine line between being sheared apart & possible RI. pic.twitter.com/VXo9tld444
— Jonathan Erdman (@wxjerdman) October 29, 2015

Steered by subtropical high pressure, Chapala is expected to track west or west-northwest through the weekend, making landfall along the coast of eastern Yemen or southwest Oman Monday.

http://www.weather.com/storms/hurricane/...-peninsula

That's unusual

Unprecedented Landfall?

You may wonder how often "tropical cyclone" and the "Arabian Peninsula" appear in the same sentence. How unusual could Chapala be?

First, according to hurricane specialist Michael Lowry and the NOAA best track database, there is no record of a hurricane-strength cyclone landfall in Yemen dating to 1945.


All this points to the world has never had as warm oceans as of now on record. All that plate movement and underwater volcanoes will not be in the news by cracky.

No, that would entail the fact that undersea volcanoes emit CO2, and we know it's only humans and livestock that do that. Not that there is any difference.