Good evening everybody. Well, Barry’s remnants have left the scene, and much to the relief of everyone here in the Garden State, some severe weather that was forecasted for Tuesday afternoon and evening didn’t pan out. However, there are some other tropical features that will be worth watching as the week progresses, particularly in the Central Atlantic. Anyway, while nothing is currently going on in terms of tropical activity in the Atlantic, there is a rare tropical system moving into the Persian Gulf.

This storm, which originated in the Indian Ocean, was as strong as a Category Five Hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with winds of 160 mph. Although it weakened to a moderate Category Three Hurricane with 120 mph winds early Tuesday, Tropical Cyclone Gonu was still a formidable storm as it closed in on the country of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula. As of Tuesday morning, the intense storm was located approximately 265 miles to the Southeast of Muscat, the capital of Oman according to CNN. The reason why this storm is so rare is that tropical cyclones are not known for impacting the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. These areas aren’t impacted usually because they are made up of deserts with very hot temperatures, low humidity, and sinking air, that inhibits tropical activity.

As a matter of fact, Cyclone Gonu is the strongest such storm to threaten the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, and the rest of the Persian Gulf in some 60 years. Despite the fact that this storm has weakened even further to below major or intense hurricane intensity with 90 knot, or 105 mph winds according to the latest advisory out of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, it still will at least provide a lot of rainfall to the region especially Southeastern Iran, which is the ultimate destination for this system. Looking at the latest satellite imagery, Gonu still has good outflow to it, and its core of thunderstorms is still intact. One big concern about this storm is the potential for heavy rains as it moves inland over Iran, which has rugged and mountainous terrain. Obviously, there are concerns for the precious oil industry across the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, and Iraq. In addition, there is the presence of American soldiers in the region as well as other U.S. military interests. However, there is the possiblity that we could see tremendous flooding and mudslides, which could create a disaster in Iran.

Presently, the storm is creating havoc on the world’s oil markets since it represents a huge obstacle for ships trying to leave the Persian Gulf region, where there are many oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. If ships are caught up in this storm and damaged, or have to take a longer route to get their petroleum cargo to customers in places such as China, Europe, and the United States, that could spell trouble for the price of a barrel of oil, which will also filter down to the price at the gas pumps here in the U.S. Knowing how gas prices have skyrocketed this spring, it wouldn’t be very helpful if a significant storm disrupted production in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the United States military is also taking precautions tp protect its interests including troops in the Iraq War theatre, and in other parts of the region including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar as well as naval ships in the area.

Now over the past dozen or so years that I’ve been running web sites on weather and hurricanes, I’ve seen a couple other rare storms like this. The most recent one was back in March of 2004 when a rare tropical cyclone struck Brazil. This storm was such a rare event for the South Atlantic that there was actually considerable debate on whether this was actually a tropical system. Tropical activity in the South Atlantic is normally non-existent due to the fact that the sea surface temperatures are much colder than in the North Atlantic, Eastern North Pacific, and Western North Pacific. In addition, because there isn’t much land area in the Southern Hemisphere, winds are usually stronger. The combination of cooler ocean temperatures and stronger upper level winds creates a very hostile environment toward tropical development. Prior to that, there was also a rare tropical storm in the Mediterranean many years ago.