Hours before it hits, forecasters unsure if storm will lash Israel or dissipate

Hours before its expected arrival, weather forecasters were unsure Saturday morning whether a rare tropical-like storm heading towards Israel would hit the country with heavy precipitation, or largely fizzle out by the time it comes in.

The “medicane” that made landfall in Egypt earlier appeared to be decreasing in strength as it headed east, and it was uncertain whether prior predictions of heavy rainfall, strong winds, and flooding across the country would bear out.

Channel 12 weather forecaster Ilanit Adler said Friday night that the coming days were “difficult to forecast.”

She explained that the weather system was “expected to diminish in the coming hours, meaning it won’t reach us at the strength with which it hit Egypt, and there is also a chance that it will peter out and dissipate.”

She added that the winter weather “will remain with us over the coming week, and right now we are talking about possible flooding mostly in the south.”

On Friday flash flood warnings were issued in the south, and hiking trails and tourist sites in the Judean desert were closed for the weekend.

Officials in the Gaza Strip declared a state of emergency that will stay in effect until Saturday evening. Several municipalities in southern Israel were also making preparations for the storm, including opening hotlines and emergency centers.

Israel’s national electric company advised people to remove any objects from their balconies and rooftops that were susceptible to being blown away or damaged by the storm.

Tropical-like cyclones in the Mediterranean are a rare meteorological phenomena that are observed only every few years. On a few occasions, the storms have reached the force of a Category 1 hurricane.