Two tropical storms formed over the Central Pacific Ocean on Friday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Kilo was located at latitude 13.0\u00b0N and longitude 153.3\u00b0W which put it about 480 miles (770 km) south-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Kilo was moving toward the west-northwest at 16 m.p.h. (26 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. (65 km\/h) and there were gusts to 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1004 mb.<\/p>\n
At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Loke was located at latitude 16.4\u00b0N and longitude 177.2\u00b0W which put it about 815 miles (1310 km) south of Midway Island.\u00a0 Loke was moving toward the north at 6 m.p.h. (9 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 55 m.p.h. (90 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1000 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Kilo is not very well organized at the present time.\u00a0 Strong easterly winds in the upper levels are blowing the tops off of the thunderstorms and the vertical wind shear is keeping Kilo from intensifying.\u00a0 If the shear decreases as some numerical models forecast, then Kilo could intensify.\u00a0 On the other hand, if the shear stays strong, then Kilo could weaken to a tropical depression.\u00a0 If Kilo intensifies as some models suggest, then it could be pushed toward the western Hawaiian Islands.\u00a0 However, if Kilo stays weaker, then winds lower in the atmosphere could steer more toward the west and keep it south of Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Loke is better organized, although most of the stronger thunderstorms are north of the center.\u00a0 An upper level trough northwest of Loke could be creating some southwesterly winds around the tropical storm.\u00a0 Although the vertical wind shear may be slowing the rate of intensification, Loke does appear to be getting stronger.\u00a0 The upper level trough is expected to steer Loke toward the north and it could approach Midway Island in four or five days.\u00a0 Loke could be a hurricane at that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two tropical storms formed over the Central Pacific Ocean on Friday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Kilo was located at latitude 13.0\u00b0N and longitude 153.3\u00b0W which put it about 480 miles (770 km) south-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Kilo was moving toward the west-northwest at 16 m.p.h. (26 km\/h).\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[23,141],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390"}],"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=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1391,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}