Tropical Storm Beta strengthened on Friday night and a Hurricane Watch was issued for a portion of the Texas coast.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Beta was located at latitude 25.2\u00b0N and longitude 92.3\u00b0W which put it about 305 miles (495 km) east of the Mouth of the Rio Grande River.\u00a0 Beta was moving toward the north-northeast at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 996 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Watch was issued for the portion of the coast from Port Aransas to High Island, Texas.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Watches were issued for the portions of the coast from the Mouth of the Rio Grande River to Port Aransas, Texas and from High Island, Texas to Morgan City, Louisiana.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Although Tropical Storm Beta looked like a highly sheared tropical cyclone on infrared satellite images, a reconnaissance plane found on Friday night that it had strengthened.\u00a0 Even though the wind speeds were stronger and the surface pressure had decreased, the circulation was still asymmetrical.\u00a0 An upper level trough over Texas was producing south-southwesterly winds which were blowing toward the top of Beta.\u00a0 Those winds were causing moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Because of the wind shear, the stronger thunderstorms were occurring in bands on the northern side of Tropical Storm Beta.\u00a0 Bands in the southern half of the tropical storm consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 175 miles (280 km) in the northeastern quadrant of Beta.\u00a0 Tropical storm force winds extended out 100 miles (160 km) in the northwestern quadrant and out only 50 miles (80 km) in the southern half of the circulation.\u00a0 The pressure difference between a large high pressure system over the eastern U.S. and the low pressure at the center of Beta was contributing to the strong winds on the northeastern side of the tropical storm.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Beta will move through an environment somewhat favorable for intensification during the next several days.\u00a0 Beta will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level trough over Texas will weaken and gradually move away from Tropical Storm Beta.\u00a0 When the trough moves away from Beta, the wind shear will decrease and Beta will be able to intensify more easily.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Beta could intensify into a hurricane in during the weekend.<\/p>\n The steering pattern around Tropical Storm Beta will be complex.\u00a0 The upper level trough over Texas is likely to steer Beta toward the north during the next 12 to 18 hours.\u00a0 Then a large cool high pressure system over the eastern U.S. will block Tropical Storm Beta from moving any farther to the north.\u00a0 The high will steer Beta to the west.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Storm Beta could approach the coast of Texas by the end of the weekend.\u00a0 Beta could move more toward the northeast when the high pressure system starts to shift toward the east early next week.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Hurricane Teddy continued to move toward Bermuda.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Teddy was located at latitude 24.0\u00b0N and longitude 57.4\u00b0W which put it about 730 miles (1170 km) southeast of Bermuda.\u00a0 Teddy was moving toward the northwest at 13 m.p.h. (20 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 130 m.p.h. (210 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 150 m.p.h. (240 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 951 mb.<\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for Bermuda.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tropical Storm Beta strengthened on Friday night and a Hurricane Watch was issued for a portion of the Texas coast.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Beta was located at latitude 25.2\u00b0N and longitude 92.3\u00b0W which put it about 305 miles (495 km) east of the Mouth of the Rio […]<\/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":[1822,2223,1823,2224,31,2227,2236,2221,113,2235,2213,112,2226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10409"}],"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=10409"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10412,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10409\/revisions\/10412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}