Gonu Predicted to Brush Oman then Head for Iran Landfall
Cyclone Gonu with its well-defined eye is predicted to brush Oman and then head for landfall in Iran. Gonu is a fairly rare cyclone in the northern Indian Ocean basin. The last storm of this size to form over the Arabian Sea was Cyclone 01A according to Earth Observatory.
The intense cyclone will not be a direct hit but will "graze" Oman's shore as a Category 4 storm, and extremely dangerous tropical cyclone with pounding waves, battering winds in the poorly protected oil center not used to such huge storms.
According to International Oil Daily "Oman on Tuesday closed its oil and gas export ports at Mina al-Fahal and Sohar as Tropical Cyclone Gonu edged closer to the Omani shore, but the impact on oil and gas supply to international markets is expected to be limited, Omani officials and shipping agents said."
The forecast earlier according to Earth Observatory predicted that the center of the storm would stay offshore, heading towards cooler water and possibly weakening the storm downwards to a Category 1 storm before making landfall in Iran.
Gulf News is running a graphic that shows Gonu coming straight into Oman and making landfall on into the interior of the country. However, according to the Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) in the UK, the storm will brush the eastern tip of Oman and then continue towards Iran in the direction of Ras al Kuh.
Gulf news reported that about 7,000 people were mobilized for Civil Defense duty in Oman and slated to help with the disaster expected to strike in Masirah, Oman, a city of about 7,000. "'A contingency plan has been drawn up to meet any disaster,' said Inspector General of Police and Customs Lt. General Malek Bin Sulaiman Al Ma'amari, who is also the Chairman of the National Committee for Civil Defence (NCCD)."
Arab News in Saudi Arabia reports that the storm could possibly arrive in Iran on Thursday "According to Julian Hemmings, tropical storm expert at the UK Meteorological Office, the storm has weakened very slightly over the past 24 hours but maintained wind speeds of well over 200 km. 'Over the last 12 to 24 hours, (June 4 - 5) the storm has indicated a slight move northward,' he said yesterday. 'If this is the case, we expect it to reach Iran about midnight UK time Thursday (3 a.m. Friday local).'"
Shipping of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is likely to at least face some disruption as the storm threads its way through the Gulf towards landfall Thursday in Iran. So far no major oil industries are reporting significant damage or disruption.
A powerful cyclone menaced Oman’s central coast with strong winds and rain early Wednesday, after thousands of residents fled to higher ground.
Forecasters said the Arabian Peninsula’s strongest storm in 60 years was on a course for southern Iran and the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Cyclone-force winds of Gonu, which had been churning northwest through the Indian Ocean, reached the Omani coastal towns Sur and Ra’s al-Hadd. Civil Defence said the storm was dropping heavy rains on the capital Muscat and other nearby towns. But there were no immediate reports of any serious damage.
At 6 p.m. EDT, Cyclone Gonu was centred just off central Oman, about 225 kilometres southeast of Muscat and was travelling along the coastline at 13 kilometres an hour, the U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
The storm had weakened somewhat during the day but was still packing winds of up to 170 km/h and churning up ocean waves, predicted to reach as high as 11 metres, Oman civil defence officials said.
Heavy rains pelted Muscat early Wednesday and streets were empty as most people stayed indoors, said blogger Vijayakumar Narayanan in a telephone interview.
“Everyone is cocooned in their houses,” said Narayanan, whom NowPublic.com reached out to in Oman.
NowPublic.com is a journalism website with 98,000 members in 3,500 communities worldwide.
“Shops and businesses are closed.”
Narayanan said city streets were quickly becoming flooded but there were no reports of wind damage.
He said the storm has alarmed many Omanis, unaccustomed to cyclones.
“They haven’t had this kind of fear before.”
Gonu is expected to s***t the region’s biggest oil installations but could disrupt shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, causing a spike in prices, oil analysts said.
Oil prices rose Monday but retreated Tuesday, although the storm weighed heavily on the market.
“If the storm hits Iran, it’s a much bigger story than Oman, given how much bigger an oil producer Iran is,” said Antoine Haff of FIMAT USA, a brokerage unit of Societe Generale.
“At a minimum, it’s likely to affect tanker traffic and to shut down some Omani oil production as a precautionary measure.”
Gonu, which means a bag made of palm leaves in the language of the Maldives, is expected to hit the eastern coast of Oman and head to the Gulf of Oman, said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Donn Washburn. The cyclone was expected to hit land in southeastern Iran late Wednesday or early Thursday, Washburn said.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a U.S. military task force that tracks storms in the Pacific and Indian oceans, predicted rough seas in the Straits of Hormuz, the transport route for two-fifths of the world’s oil and the southern entrance to the Gulf.
In Tehran, the Iranian government’s Department of Meteorology predicted heavy rain and strong winds along the southeastern coast. Storm warnings had been issued and some damage was expected, the department said.
On Tuesday, as the cyclone approached, authorities evacuated nearly 7,000 people from Masirah, a lowland island off the east coast of Oman, said Gen. Malik bin Suleiman al-Muamri, head of the country’s civil defence. Oman’s main international airport in Muscat was also closed.
Masirah Island includes one of four air bases the Omani government allows the U.S. military to use for refuelling, logistics and storage, although little has been revealed publicly about U.S.-Oman military ties.
The Masirah base hosted U.S. B-1B bombers, C-130 transports and U.S. Special Forces AC-130 gunships during the war in Afghanistan and the United States has continued to have basing rights on the island.
U.S. forces are preparing for Gonu “just like anyone would prepare for such a cyclone,” said Lt. Denise Garcia, a spokeswoman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, which is based in Bahrain.
She declined to provide more details.
She said U.S. navy ships in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the region are also taking precautions to avoid Gonu but there was no major overhaul of operations. The U.S. military has offered its assistance to Oman but so far Omani authorities have not requested help, she said.
On Masirah, authorities said a state of emergency had been declared. Troops and police were mobilized to help provide shelter and medical services.
Families were also leaving their homes Tuesday on the mainland, officials said. The government said schools and public buildings were emptied to make room for the evacuees.
Oman’s major oil installations, which were not directly in the storm’s projected path and nowhere near as extensive as those of its neighbours, continued operations but took precautions as Gonu approached.
In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the government said the country and oil markets would not be seriously affected by the storm.
But some oil analysts said the storm could have a damaging effect on the oil market.
Manouchehr Takin, an analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London, said the real fear is the loading of tankers might be delayed by the storm.
“About 17-21 million barrels a day of oil are coming out of the Persian Gulf. Even if only some of the tankers are delayed, that could reduce the supply of oil and increase prices,” Takin said.
Even with the weaker wind speeds, Gonu is expected to be the strongest cyclone to hit the Arabian Peninsula since record keeping started in 1945.
A cyclone is the term used for hurricanes in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific.
The intense cyclone will not be a direct hit but will "graze" Oman's shore as a Category 4 storm, and extremely dangerous tropical cyclone with pounding waves, battering winds in the poorly protected oil center not used to such huge storms.
According to International Oil Daily "Oman on Tuesday closed its oil and gas export ports at Mina al-Fahal and Sohar as Tropical Cyclone Gonu edged closer to the Omani shore, but the impact on oil and gas supply to international markets is expected to be limited, Omani officials and shipping agents said."
The forecast earlier according to Earth Observatory predicted that the center of the storm would stay offshore, heading towards cooler water and possibly weakening the storm downwards to a Category 1 storm before making landfall in Iran.
Gulf News is running a graphic that shows Gonu coming straight into Oman and making landfall on into the interior of the country. However, according to the Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) in the UK, the storm will brush the eastern tip of Oman and then continue towards Iran in the direction of Ras al Kuh.
Gulf news reported that about 7,000 people were mobilized for Civil Defense duty in Oman and slated to help with the disaster expected to strike in Masirah, Oman, a city of about 7,000. "'A contingency plan has been drawn up to meet any disaster,' said Inspector General of Police and Customs Lt. General Malek Bin Sulaiman Al Ma'amari, who is also the Chairman of the National Committee for Civil Defence (NCCD)."
Arab News in Saudi Arabia reports that the storm could possibly arrive in Iran on Thursday "According to Julian Hemmings, tropical storm expert at the UK Meteorological Office, the storm has weakened very slightly over the past 24 hours but maintained wind speeds of well over 200 km. 'Over the last 12 to 24 hours, (June 4 - 5) the storm has indicated a slight move northward,' he said yesterday. 'If this is the case, we expect it to reach Iran about midnight UK time Thursday (3 a.m. Friday local).'"
Shipping of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is likely to at least face some disruption as the storm threads its way through the Gulf towards landfall Thursday in Iran. So far no major oil industries are reporting significant damage or disruption.
A powerful cyclone menaced Oman’s central coast with strong winds and rain early Wednesday, after thousands of residents fled to higher ground.
Forecasters said the Arabian Peninsula’s strongest storm in 60 years was on a course for southern Iran and the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Cyclone-force winds of Gonu, which had been churning northwest through the Indian Ocean, reached the Omani coastal towns Sur and Ra’s al-Hadd. Civil Defence said the storm was dropping heavy rains on the capital Muscat and other nearby towns. But there were no immediate reports of any serious damage.
At 6 p.m. EDT, Cyclone Gonu was centred just off central Oman, about 225 kilometres southeast of Muscat and was travelling along the coastline at 13 kilometres an hour, the U.S. military’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said.
The storm had weakened somewhat during the day but was still packing winds of up to 170 km/h and churning up ocean waves, predicted to reach as high as 11 metres, Oman civil defence officials said.
Heavy rains pelted Muscat early Wednesday and streets were empty as most people stayed indoors, said blogger Vijayakumar Narayanan in a telephone interview.
“Everyone is cocooned in their houses,” said Narayanan, whom NowPublic.com reached out to in Oman.
NowPublic.com is a journalism website with 98,000 members in 3,500 communities worldwide.
“Shops and businesses are closed.”
Narayanan said city streets were quickly becoming flooded but there were no reports of wind damage.
He said the storm has alarmed many Omanis, unaccustomed to cyclones.
“They haven’t had this kind of fear before.”
Gonu is expected to s***t the region’s biggest oil installations but could disrupt shipping in the Straits of Hormuz, causing a spike in prices, oil analysts said.
Oil prices rose Monday but retreated Tuesday, although the storm weighed heavily on the market.
“If the storm hits Iran, it’s a much bigger story than Oman, given how much bigger an oil producer Iran is,” said Antoine Haff of FIMAT USA, a brokerage unit of Societe Generale.
“At a minimum, it’s likely to affect tanker traffic and to shut down some Omani oil production as a precautionary measure.”
Gonu, which means a bag made of palm leaves in the language of the Maldives, is expected to hit the eastern coast of Oman and head to the Gulf of Oman, said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Donn Washburn. The cyclone was expected to hit land in southeastern Iran late Wednesday or early Thursday, Washburn said.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center, a U.S. military task force that tracks storms in the Pacific and Indian oceans, predicted rough seas in the Straits of Hormuz, the transport route for two-fifths of the world’s oil and the southern entrance to the Gulf.
In Tehran, the Iranian government’s Department of Meteorology predicted heavy rain and strong winds along the southeastern coast. Storm warnings had been issued and some damage was expected, the department said.
On Tuesday, as the cyclone approached, authorities evacuated nearly 7,000 people from Masirah, a lowland island off the east coast of Oman, said Gen. Malik bin Suleiman al-Muamri, head of the country’s civil defence. Oman’s main international airport in Muscat was also closed.
Masirah Island includes one of four air bases the Omani government allows the U.S. military to use for refuelling, logistics and storage, although little has been revealed publicly about U.S.-Oman military ties.
The Masirah base hosted U.S. B-1B bombers, C-130 transports and U.S. Special Forces AC-130 gunships during the war in Afghanistan and the United States has continued to have basing rights on the island.
U.S. forces are preparing for Gonu “just like anyone would prepare for such a cyclone,” said Lt. Denise Garcia, a spokeswoman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, which is based in Bahrain.
She declined to provide more details.
She said U.S. navy ships in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the region are also taking precautions to avoid Gonu but there was no major overhaul of operations. The U.S. military has offered its assistance to Oman but so far Omani authorities have not requested help, she said.
On Masirah, authorities said a state of emergency had been declared. Troops and police were mobilized to help provide shelter and medical services.
Families were also leaving their homes Tuesday on the mainland, officials said. The government said schools and public buildings were emptied to make room for the evacuees.
Oman’s major oil installations, which were not directly in the storm’s projected path and nowhere near as extensive as those of its neighbours, continued operations but took precautions as Gonu approached.
In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the government said the country and oil markets would not be seriously affected by the storm.
But some oil analysts said the storm could have a damaging effect on the oil market.
Manouchehr Takin, an analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London, said the real fear is the loading of tankers might be delayed by the storm.
“About 17-21 million barrels a day of oil are coming out of the Persian Gulf. Even if only some of the tankers are delayed, that could reduce the supply of oil and increase prices,” Takin said.
Even with the weaker wind speeds, Gonu is expected to be the strongest cyclone to hit the Arabian Peninsula since record keeping started in 1945.
A cyclone is the term used for hurricanes in the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific.
Comment