AccuWeather.com reports fifteen more bodies from the Air France plane were found Sunday after the first two were recovered Saturday. Several pieces of luggage in addition to parts of the plane's wing section and a couple of seats were also found this weekend over 400 miles north of Brazil's Fernando de Noronha islands. Search efforts for more of the plane's wreckage will continue the next few days. Fortunately, thunderstorm activity within the search area may lessen Monday into Tuesday.
The place where the items were found this weekend and where the plane is thought to have crashed lies in a part of the Atlantic Ocean where thunderstorms tend to rumble on a daily basis. Thunderstorms, as well as rough seas and the ocean's depth, will make searching for the plane's debris difficult in the coming weeks.
The daily occurrence of heavy storms and rough seas in the search area, which lies in the tropics, is common in this time of year. The thunderstorms are erupting in an area known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
The ITCZ is expected to shift slightly northward from the search area Monday into Tuesday, creating at least a two-day window where thunderstorm activity will lessen. Searchers may even get by with dry and calm conditions both days. Toward the middle and end of the upcoming week, however, the ITCZ will likely shift back southward, promoting more stormy weather and rough seas across the search area.
To further complicate salvage efforts in the coming weeks and months, large clusters of thunderstorms will roll off the African coast about every few days. If conditions are right, thunderstorms can form into tropical depressions or tropical storms.
The water depth at the estimated crash site is estimated to be at least 9,000 feet deep. An underwater mountain range, known as the mid-Atlantic Ridge, also lies in the vicinity. This will pose an added problem for searchers.
While heavier parts of the plane's wreckage would sink to the bottom of the ocean, lighter parts will drift with the prevailing ocean currents, flowing from west to east and having an average speed of 5 mph. Provided these conditions remain constant, floating debris could reach the African coast in the next couple of days.
The Airbus 330-200 jet carrying 228 people took off from Rio de Janeiro Sunday en route to Paris and went missing Sunday evening, EDT.
Roberti@AccuWeather.com
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