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A very rare storm, called a “medicane” is set to hit Egypt and Israel on Saturday, bringing with it heavy rainfall, very strong winds and a significant amount of coastal flooding. According to the UK Met Office, this kind of storm is very rare this far east in the Mediterranean. The name "medicane" is derived from the words "hurricane" and "Mediterranean."

The storm blends elements of tropical and non-tropical cyclones, spanning a width of 300km and is currently parked 100 miles southwest of Cyprus. Satellite images are showing that it resembles a tropical storm and since the region is not a tropical one, it makes the storm a pretty unusual one.

OpenWRF (https://t.co/RIKrj0QBnd) runs & provides daily 4km WRF simulations over the Mediterranean region. Today's model run shows a 55kt, 994-hPa landfall over far eastern Egypt, with a heavy rain band capable of producing flash flooding across Israel, Palestine and Jordan. pic.twitter.com/5JkxsjoKOf — Tomer Burg (@burgwx) October 25, 2019

Tropical storms generally need more heat and the Mediterranean is not characteristically warm enough to cause these kinds of storms. What most people think about when you say “cyclone” or “hurricane” is a tornado sort of phenomenon but the most damaging elements expected from this medicane is the coastal flooding with many experts of the opinion that Alexandria will get the worst of it. Although there have already been reports of small tornadoes in the North Coast resort city of Alamein.

Alexandria generally undergoes a certain amount of flooding each winter because of poor infrastructure, which is why many people are worried about the damage that a storm like this could leave in its wake.

Weather reports are asserting that the Mediterranean’s waters are 2 to 4 degrees warmer than usual for this time of year which is being cited as the reason this rare storm is happening, as non-tropical storms, which are the kind that this region of the world generally experiences don’t feature a warm core like their tropical counterparts.

Some models really have this #medicane strengthening to a 50-55+ mph storm as it approaches the Suez Canal late Friday local. Little storm and tricky modeling means little shifts = big impacts for intensity/realized impacts. Heavy downpours parts of #Egypt/#Israel. #إسرائيل pic.twitter.com/97kZGlxKis — Matthew Cappucci (@MatthewCappucci) October 25, 2019

Current wind speeds in the storm’s core are around 35mph, which isn’t that bad yet, although experts are expecting Friday and Saturday to experience an increase in wind speeds that will most likely be the first phenomenon experienced by Egyptians ahead of the storm. Indeed Cairo is cloudy and windy today.

Experts are not in agreement over how the storm will progress, because real-time data for these kinds of storms is hard to come by as you can’t send a reconaissance mission into its core to get info. But what everyone is in agreement over is that the worst of the storm will be experienced in Egypt and the Palestine/Israel areas on Saturday afternoon.

Experts are also anticipating more of these storms in the future because of climate change, citing the increasing temperature in the Mediterranean as the main reason that it is now conducive to these “medicanes.”