For the last couple of days, a rather uncommon event of a tropical cyclone in the Meditteranean Sea has produced flooding rains over Sicily. The system, currently located south of Malta, reached tropical storm strength Tuesday. Since then, northerly windshear has displaced most of the convection to the south of the center with a few showers over Tripoli, Libya. The system is probably now a tropical depression. A front approaching from the western Med Sea will likely maintain enough shear ahead of it to prevent reintensification. The center has been quasi-stationary for the past two days. An oddity, but they do infrequently occur in that region. The system has not yet been classified by SAB (which now has responsibility for that region of the world) but it has been closely monitored by Italy.

Italy Satellite Animation

Weather at Luqa, Malta

ED