A rare occurrence of a tropical cyclone (equivalent to a hurricane in the Atlantic) making landfall on the Arabian peninsula is expected to occur this week as Chapala moves west towards Yemen and Oman.  Some areas of the desert countries could receive up to 8 years’ worth of rain in 1 to 2 days.  Chapala is expected to strengthen to have winds equal to those of a category 5 hurricane before it weakens as it approaches the cost.

You can read more about the storm at the Sydney Morning Herald here. Some additional information can be found at SkyMetWeather here and in the CIMSS blog at https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/19926.

The sea surface temperatures in that part of the Indian Ocean are well above normal and that is no doubt helping to drive the strengthening of the storm.  You can see the SST anomaly map from ClimateReanalyzer.com below.  The satellite pictures below show the contrast between the storm and the desert it will hit later this week.

chapala path 10-30-2015  chabala satellite 10-30-2015  modis chapala color 10-30-2015

track_arabian_sea_bay_bengal1  sst anomaly indian ocean 10-30=2015