Hurricane Laura strengthened over the central Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Laura was located 25.2\u00b0N and longitude 89.5\u00b0W which put it about 405 miles (655 km) southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the west-northwest at 17 m.p.h. (28 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 90 m.p.h. (145 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 110 m.p.h. (175 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 978 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from San Luis Pass, Texas to Intracoastal City, Louisana.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for the portions of the coast from Sargent to San Luis Pass, Texas and from Intracoastal City, Louisiana to the Mouth of the Mississippi River.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning was also in effect for Houston, Texas.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Hurricane Laura intensified over the warm water in the central Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night.\u00a0 An eye was visible intermittently on satellite imagery.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of strong thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Hurricane Laura.\u00a0 Storms near the core generated upper level divergence which pumped mass away from the hurricane.\u00a0 The removal of large quantities of mass was causing the pressure to decrease more rapidly.<\/p>\n The area of Laura with hurricane force winds expanded on Tuesday night.\u00a0 Hurricane force winds extended out 45 miles (75 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 175 miles (280 km) from the center.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Hurricane Laura was 13.9.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 13.7 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 27.6.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura will move through an environment favorable for intensification on Wednesday.\u00a0 Laura will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Laura will strengthen on Wednesday and it could intensify rapidly.\u00a0 Laura will strengthen into a major hurricane and it could reach Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura will move around the western end of a subtropical high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high will steer Laura toward the northwest during the next 12 to 18 hours.\u00a0 The hurricane will turn toward the north when it reaches the western end of the high.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Laura will landfall near the border between Louisiana and Texas on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura will be a major hurricane when it makes landfall.\u00a0 It will be capable of causing regional major wind damage.\u00a0 Hurricane Laura will also cause a storm surge of 10 to 15 feet (3 to 5 meters) near and to the east of where the center makes landfall.\u00a0 Locally heavy rain could cause flash floods in parts of east Texas and Louisiana when Hurricane Laura moves inland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hurricane Laura strengthened over the central Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Laura was located 25.2\u00b0N and longitude 89.5\u00b0W which put it about 405 miles (655 km) southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the west-northwest at 17 m.p.h. (28 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[528,527,1681,791,2170,650,1775,2160,113,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10191,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10190\/revisions\/10191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}