Typhoon Atsani intensified over the past 24 hours and it is now the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 At 8:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Typhoon Atsani was located at latitude 19.6\u00b0N and longitude 151.3\u00b0E which put it about 1340 miles (2160 km) southeast of Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Atsani was moving toward the northwest at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 160 m.p.h. (260 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 185 m.p.h. (300 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 918 mb.<\/p>\n
Atsani is in an environment that is very favorable for tropical cyclones.\u00a0 The Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level winds are very light and there is almost no vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Upper level divergence is pumping out mass in all directions and Atsani has a very circular appearance with a large eye evident on satellite imagery.\u00a0 There are more rainbands and thunderstorms in the southern half of the circulation which is probably the result of warmer, moister air in area.<\/p>\n
Atsani could maintain its current intensity for another 24 hours or so, although an eyewall replacement cycle will cause weakening if one occurs.\u00a0 In another day or two the typhoon will start to move over cooler SSTs.\u00a0 In addition as Atsani moves northward, it will start to be affected by the upper level westerlies in the middle latitudes.\u00a0 Those winds will increase wind shear and weaken Atsani further.<\/p>\n
Atsani is moving around the western end of a subtropical ridge which is steering it toward the northwest.\u00a0 That general motion is expected to continue for another couple of days.\u00a0 When Atsani reaches the western end of the ridge it will start moving toward the north.\u00a0 Eventually, the upper level westerly winds will accelerate Atsani off to the northeast.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Atsani would pass north of the Marianas and northeast of Iwo To.\u00a0 At the current time the center of Atsani is forecast to pass about 100 miles east of ChiChi Jima.\u00a0 However, a slight deviation of the track toward the west could bring Atsani closer to Chichi JIma and Iwo To.<\/p>\n
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Typhoon Atsani intensified over the past 24 hours and it is now the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 At 8:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Typhoon Atsani was located at latitude 19.6\u00b0N and longitude 151.3\u00b0E which put it about 1340 miles (2160 km) southeast of Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Atsani […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[107,44],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366"}],"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=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1367,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}