{"id":10418,"date":"2020-09-19T21:55:12","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T21:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/?p=10418"},"modified":"2020-09-19T21:55:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-19T21:55:12","slug":"tropical-storm-beta-in-holding-pattern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/?p=10418","title":{"rendered":"Tropical Storm Beta in Holding Pattern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tropical Storm Beta was in a holding pattern on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Beta was located at latitude 26.6\u00b0N and longitude 92.4\u00b0which put it about 320 miles (510 km) east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.\u00a0 Beta was stationary.\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 994 mb.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">A Hurricane Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from Port Aransas to High Island, Texas.\u00a0 <strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Port Aransas to Intracoastal City, Louisiana.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Tropical Storm Watches were in effect for the portions of the coast from the Mouth of the Rio Grande River to Port Aransas and from Intracoastal City to Morgan City, Louisiana.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The intensity of Tropical Storm Beta held steady and it moved little on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 An upper level trough over Texas produced southwesterly winds which blew across the top of Tropical Storm Beta.\u00a0 Those winds caused strong vertical wind shear and they blew the tops off thunderstorms near the center of Beta on Saturday morning.\u00a0 The shear may have decreased later because new thunderstorms formed near the center of circulation on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 A reconnaissance flight found that the winds around Tropical Storm Beta had maintained their speed.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 175 miles (280 km) on the northern side of Beta.\u00a0 Tropical storm force winds only extended out 50 miles (80 km) in the southern half of the circulation.<\/p>\n<p>Tropical Storm Beta will move through an environment somewhat favorable for intensification during the next 36 hours.\u00a0 Beta will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level trough over Texas is forecast to weaken and if that happens, then the vertical wind shear will decrease.\u00a0 There is drier air over Texas and Tropical Storm Beta could pull some of that air into the southern part of the circulation.\u00a0 Beta could strengthen on Sunday if the wind shear decreases.\u00a0 However, if Tropical Storm Beta remains stationary for too long, its winds will mix cooler water to the surface, which would inhibit intensification.<\/p>\n<p>A large cool high pressure system is over the eastern U.S.\u00a0 The high blocked the northward movement of Beta, which is why the tropical storm became stationary.\u00a0 The high pressure system will move slowly eastward during the next few days.\u00a0 As the high moves east, it will steer Tropical Storm Beta slowly toward the west-northwest.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Storm Beta could approach the Central Texas coast on Monday.\u00a0 Beta could be a hurricane when it approaches the coast.<\/p>\n<p>The figure below shows the factors affecting Tropical Storm Beta on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Nationwide091920.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-10419\" src=\"http:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Nationwide091920-300x184.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Nationwide091920-300x184.png 300w, https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Nationwide091920-624x383.png 624w, https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Nationwide091920.png 729w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Hurricane Teddy continued to move in the direction of Bermuda.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Hurricane Teddy was located at latitude 26.7\u00b0N and longitude 60.2\u00b0W which put it about 475 miles (765 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 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 140 m.p.h. (220 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 958 mb.\u00a0 <strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for Bermuda.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tropical Storm Beta was in a holding pattern on Saturday afternoon.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Beta was located at latitude 26.6\u00b0N and longitude 92.4\u00b0which put it about 320 miles (510 km) east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.\u00a0 Beta was stationary.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 60 m.p.h. (95 [&hellip;]<\/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":[1822,2223,1823,2224,31,2227,789,2221,113,2213,112,2226],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418"}],"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=10418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10420,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10418\/revisions\/10420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}