[HOT] Cyclone Chapala

Andrew Buck andrew.r.buck at gmail.com
Mon Nov 2 13:53:34 UTC 2015


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Hello everyone,

It has been a busy couple of weeks for HOT and it looks like our work
may not be done yet.  Tropical cyclone Chapala is predicted to make
landfall on the southern coast of Yemen later today.  The storm is
currently a category 3, but is predicted to drop to category 1 by the
time it makes landfall due to the dry desert air it will be pulling
in.  However even though this will be a fairly weak storm in terms of
windspeed, the rainfall it produces coupled with the possibility of
high storm surge due to the shape of the coastline at the predicted
landfall site make flooding a serious threat to consider.

The storm may produce up to 20 inches of rain in some locations.  This
is in a desert area which typically sees an average of 2 inches of
rainfall per year.  On top of this the ongoing civil war in Yemen has
already made food insecurity an issue in addition to the other
problems conflict always brings with it.

I have done some preliminary mapping and assessment work in the area
over the last couple days.  The area is fairly well mapped already,
not a lot of map data but also not a lot there to map.  The main
things missing at this point are buildings in the town of Al Mukalla
(the eye is expected to make landfall just west of here making storm
surge a serious threat), and the rivers/streams in the area.  There
are a few more places where roads need to be filled in but the main
backbone links are pretty much in place.

Given all of the above, I think we should at a minimum be monitoring
the situation and possibly begin an activation there.  The main
questions regarding activation are: Do we have contacts who could use
the data? and Given the current work in Mexico and Afghanistan can we
sustain this activation as well?

Anyway, that is my assessment at this point.  For those interested in
contributing the following links below will give background on the
storm and the OSM link is to the likely to be affected area for those
interested in mapping.  I would say rivers over the broad area (maybe
the whole country since it is not that big) would be the main priority
with buildings in Al Mukalla (especially along the coast and the
waterways) would be second in priority.  If you plan to do any mapping
in the area, just send a quick reply with a rough summary of
what/where to avoid conflicts.  If we get too many people for that to
be practical we can switch over to a task manager task.

Links for storm info:
Jeff Masters blogs from Wunderground on the subject:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html



The storm's page showing past movement and predicted path:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/northern-arabian/2015/Tropical-Cyclone-Chapala


And finally, the OSM link to the affected area (the city of Al Mualla
is the one on the coast at the center):
http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=8/14.573/48.584



Hopefully the damage from the storm will be limited, but in a country
already suffering from a civil war I am afraid that is unlikely to be
the case.  I look forward to working with the community to do what we
can to help.

- -AndrewBuck

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