Update on cyclone news

The Europian research data of ECMWF numerical forecast model had shown a would-be tropical cyclone threatening the northern and northwestern shore of the Arabian Sea.

However, this prediction was not shared by few other numerical models and ECMWF forecast disappeared as of Friday 23 May.

Surprising that in one day we go from "major" cylone threat to "no" threat? Well better be cautious, many do not believe so. We cannot rule out a tropical cyclone, although the odds are now very low.The onset of the South West Monsoon in Kerala will bring in a tropical depression and the big rains to muscat. Anyway, that is something worth watching for as we all await.

The latest run of the ECMWF is that of 0000 UTC Saturday, which has no tropical cyclone threat.

Tropical cyclone is not predicted in the latest forecast scenarios of the NOGAPS and GFS forecast models.
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WHAT IS NUMERICAL MODELLING OF WEATHER?

The ECMWF DOES NUMERICAL MODELLING OF WEATHER. It is a research organisation supported by 18 European States - Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom.

The atmosphere is governed by a set of physical laws which can be expressed as mathematical equations. The temperature, wind speed and direction or humidity, air pressure etc will change continuously. ECMWF solve these equations using a super computer to forecast the weather - rain, temperature, sunshine and wind.

However, these equations are complex 'non-linear partial differential equations'. There is no exact solution that can give us the future values. Instead, numerical modelling techniques are employed to provide approximate solutions. The smaller the set of numbers, the less detail we will have about the future state of the atmosphere.

Observations from satellites data are used to calculate the weather (wind etc.) at each point throughout the model atmosphere. The forecast is made in short steps, of about 15 minutes ahead, with each forecast providing initial conditions for the next forecast step.
Their predictions are based upon the available data and using the best science available. But the atmosphere is still more complex than the most complex numerical prediction models sometimes fails.