In spite of significant vertical wind shear a surface circulation has been consolidating inside an area of thunderstorms north of Yap.\u00a0 The system has been designated Tropical Storm Koppu.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Storm Koppu was located at latitude 15.7\u00b0N and longitude 137.1\u00b0E which put it about 430 miles (690 km) north of Yap.\u00a0 Koppu was moving toward the west at 14 m.p.h. (23 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 993 mb.<\/p>\n
Significant vertical wind shear is inhibiting the organization of Tropical Storm Koppu.\u00a0 An upper level ridge north of Koppu is generating strong northeasterly winds over the top of the tropical storm.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear is causing most of the strong thunderstorms to be located southwest of the center of circulation.\u00a0 The only other deep convection is occurring in a band that is west of the core of the circulation.<\/p>\n
Koppu is over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C and so there is plenty of energy in the upper ocean.\u00a0 The wind shear will inhibit intensification for another 24 to 48 hours before it starts to subside.\u00a0 Koppu could intensify much more quickly later this week when it moves into an area where the upper level winds are lighter.\u00a0 Koppu could become a typhoon withing 36 to 48 hours and it could be a strong typhoon by the end of the week.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge is steering Tropical Storm Koppu quickly to the west.\u00a0 That general motion is expected to continue for the rest of the week.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Koppu could be approaching northern Luzon in about three or four days.\u00a0 It could be a significant typhoon by that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In spite of significant vertical wind shear a surface circulation has been consolidating inside an area of thunderstorms north of Yap.\u00a0 The system has been designated Tropical Storm Koppu.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Storm Koppu was located at latitude 15.7\u00b0N and longitude 137.1\u00b0E which put it about 430 miles […]<\/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":[239,43,103,64,42,238,240,66],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753"}],"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=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1754,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}