Hurricane Laura rapidly intensified to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Laura was located at latitude 27.3\u00b0N and longitude 92.5\u00b0W which put it about 200 miles (320 km) south-southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the northwest at 16 m.p.h. (26 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 140 m.p.h. (225 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 170 m.p.h. (275 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 952 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from San Luis, Pass, Texas to Intracoastal City, Lousiana.<\/span>\u00a0 Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for the portions of the coast from Sargent, Texas to San Luis Pass and from Intracoastal City to the Mouth of the Mississippi River.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Hurricane Laura continued to intensify rapidly on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 The eye became more circular and well defined.\u00a0 The ring of thunderstorms around the eye strengthened and the highest wind speeds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0\u00a0 Storms near the core of Laura generated strong upper level divergence which pumped large quantities of mass away from the hurricane.\u00a0 The continued removal of mass allowed a further rapid decrease in surface pressure.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura grew into a large hurricane on Wednesday.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out 70 miles (110 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 175 miles (280 km) from the center of Laura.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Hurricane Laura was 28.3.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 19.1 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 47.4.\u00a0 Hurricane Laura was capable of causing widespread significant damage.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura could strengthen during the next few hours.\u00a0 Laura will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 There is a possibility that Hurricane Laura could intensify to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 When Hurricane Laura nears the coast of western Louisiana, it will be closer to an upper level trough over Texas and Oklahoma.\u00a0 The trough will produce southwesterly winds which will blow toward the top of Laura.\u00a0 Those winds will cause the vertical wind shear to increase and that could stop the intensification of Hurricane Laura.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura will move around the western end of a subtropical high pressure system that extends from the Atlantic Ocean over the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 Laura will start to move towards the north when it reaches the western end of the high.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Laura will make landfall south of Lake Charles, Louisiana in 8 to 10 hours.\u00a0 After it makes landfall, Laura will move north over western Louisiana.<\/p>\n Hurricane Laura is a strong, extremely dangerous hurricane.\u00a0 It is capable of causing widespread significant damage.\u00a0 Laura will be stronger than Hurricane Rita was when Rita hit the same area in 2005.\u00a0 Hurricane Laura will cause a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet (5 to 7 meters) near and to the east of where the center makes landfall.\u00a0 Large sections of the southwest coast of Louisiana south of Interstate 10 will go underwater.\u00a0 Hurricane Laura will bring hurricane force winds to much of western Louisiana and to extreme east Texas.\u00a0 Widespread power outages are likely.\u00a0 Hurricane Laura will drop heavy rain over parts of western Louisiana, eastern Texas and Arkansas.\u00a0 Flash floods could result from the heavy rain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hurricane Laura rapidly intensified to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Laura was located at latitude 27.3\u00b0N and longitude 92.5\u00b0W which put it about 200 miles (320 km) south-southeast of Lake Charles, Louisiana.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the northwest at 16 m.p.h. (26 […]<\/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":[528,527,115,2171,2170,650,1775,2160,113,2173,2172,2174,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10199"}],"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=10199"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10202,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10199\/revisions\/10202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}