Image courtesy: Hurricane News
Cyclone Mekunu moves towards Salalah
SALALAH, May 25, 2018
Tropical Cyclone Mekunu is strengthening as it moves toward the Arabian Peninsula, where it is expected to make landfall on Saturday near Salalah in Oman, reports said.
Mekunu comes on the heels of Tropical Cyclone Sagar, a rare storm in the western Gulf of Aden, which triggered flash flooding, destroyed homes and killed more than a dozen people less than a week ago.
Cyclone Mekunu will be “extremely severe” when it crashes into the Arabian Peninsula, meteorologists warned.
Conditions quickly deteriorated in Salalah after sunrise on Friday, with winds and rain beginning to pick up. Strong waves smashed into empty tourist beaches. Many holidaymakers fled the storm on Thursday night before Salalah International Airport closed, a Gulf News report said.
The cyclone is expected to bring a lot of rain to the deserts in Yemen, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.
India’s Meteorological Department said the storm in the Arabian Sea was packing maximum sustained winds of 160-170 km per hour, with gusts of up to 180 kph.