Yemen update 10/30\2015.. Catastrophic flooding possible with Chapala’s arrival in Yemen

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Yemeni Forces Shoot Down Saudi Military Plane in Ta’iz Province

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940808000238

The Yemeni army and popular forces shot down a military plane of the Saudi-led coalition forces used for dropping weapons and ammunition for the terrorists and Saudi troops in the province of Ta’iz.

The Saudi-led coalition’s logistics plane was hit while flying over the mountainous area of Sabr in Ta’iz province on Thursday.

Provincial officials confirmed that the aircraft was exploded in Hasban area of Sabr region.

The Saudi planes drop weapons and munitions for their troops in Ta’iz after their recent defeats in the province.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 219 days now to restore power to fugitive president Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 6,914 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by Ansarullah revolutionaries of the Houthi movement.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

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War in Yemen Back on Track: 15 Saudi Soldiers Captured in Ma’rib

http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940808000571

The Yemeni army and popular forces captured over a dozen Saudi troops in the province of Ma’rib.

At least 15 Saudi military men were captured by the Yemeni forces in Sarvah region of Ma’rib province.

The Yemeni forces, meantime, seized back several strategic military positions in al-Zobab region of the province of Ta’iz.

The army and popular forces also pounded the military positions of the Saudi aggressors in Najran and Asir provinces, including Zobneh military base and a governmental building in al-Rabou’eh by missiles.

The Yemeni army’s artillery units also hit the Nahvaqe military base in Najran and Al-Shabaka military base in Jizan provinces on Friday.

On Thursday, the Yemeni forces killed a large number of Saudi-led coalition forces in heavy clashes in Ma’rib.

“Tens of foreign forces taking part in the Saudi-led aggression against Yemen were killed in fierce clashes in Ma’rib,” local sources said.

The sources also said that tens of Saudi soldiers were also wounded and captured in the Yemeni forces’ operations.

Also on Thursday, the Yemeni army and popular forces destroyed several positions of the Saudi army in the Southern parts of the kingdom in massive missile and artillery attacks.

The Yemeni forces’ missiles and artillery units pounded the positions of the Saudi army in Al-Qarn, Qaem Zobeid, Jonoub al-Kobra and Soudaneh village in Jizan and Najran region, killing tens of military men, a Yemeni military source said.

The Yemeni missiles and artillery shells hit the Al-Mosfeq and Al-Ramza military bases of the Saudi army in Jizan and Najran, respectively.

Cyclone Chapala in Oman and Yemen

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3172

Tropical Cyclone Chapala took advantage of the the warmest waters ever recorded in the Arabian Sea at this time of year to put on a remarkable burst of rapid intensification overnight. Chapala topped out for the time being as a top-end Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds (1-minute average) at 2 am EDT Friday, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). The India Meteorology Department (IMD), which has official responsibility for tropical cyclone warnings in the North Indian Ocean, put Chapala’s intensity at 130 mph winds (3-minute average) with a central pressure of 942 mb at 8 am EDT Friday. This made Chapala the second strongest tropical cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea, behind Category 5 Cylcone Gonu of 2007, the only Category 5 storm ever recorded in the Arabian Sea. Gonu peaked at 165 mph winds (JTWC) or 146 mph (IMD) with a 920 mb pressure. The North Indian Ocean as a whole has seen five Category 5 storms in recorded history (with four of them occurring in the Bay of Bengal), so Chapala is the sixth strongest tropical cyclone ever observed in the North Indian Ocean.

Catastrophic flooding possible with Chapala’s arrival
The latest forecasts take Chapala into the east coast of Yemen as a hurricane, and on into Saudi Arabia as a weakening tropical depression. Apart from any wind damage, this track will bring huge downpours to eastern Yemen and western Oman, where almost any amount of rainfall is an event worth noting. As shown in Figure 4, the annual average rainfall in Yemen less than 2” along the immediate coast and less than 5” inland, except along higher terrain, where it can approach 10”. Local totals from Chapala could easily exceed 10”, with the latest run of the HWRF model predicting totals over 24″ in some coastal mountainous regions. Southern Yemen was hard-hit by Tropical Depression Three of 2008, which came on the heels of heavy rains from another storm, and resulted in disastrous flooding in Yemen. According to EM-DAT, the international disaster database, that storm killed 90 people and did $400 million in damage, making it the second worst natural disaster in Yemen’s history, behind a June 13, 1996 flood (thanks go to wunderground member TropicalAnalystwx13 for alerting us to this fact.) According to a report from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, the 2008 cyclone dropped an average rainfall of 91 mm (3.58”) over an area of 2 million hectares (7722 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey). Losses totaled more than 6% of Yemen’s GDP, which would be the equivalent of a $1 trillion storm in the US. Although the 2008 Yemen cyclone arrived in the wake of several days of preceding rainfall, Chapala is a much stronger cyclone.

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