Tropical Storm Champi intensified on Wednesday and the National Weather Service issued watches and warnings for the northern Marianas.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Champi was located at latitude 15.5\u00b0N and longitude 151.9\u00b0E which put it about 450 miles (730 km) east of Saipan.\u00a0 Champi was moving toward the west-northwest at 13 m.p.h. (21 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 984 mb.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued for Rota, Tinian, Saipan, Alamagan, Pagan and Agrihan.\u00a0 A Typhoon Watch has been issued for Alamagan, Pagan and Agrihan.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Storm Champi is still organizing.\u00a0 An upper level ridge north of the tropical storm is causing easterly winds to blow over the top of Champi.\u00a0 The resulting vertical wind shear is causing most of the stronger thunderstorms to form in the western half of the circulation.\u00a0 Champi is over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification on Thursday, but Champi could reach typhoon intensity within 24 hours.\u00a0 It is expected to move into an area where the upper level winds are lighter on Friday and the rate of intensification could increase.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge is steering Champi on a track that is a little north of due west.\u00a0 That general motion is expected to continue for the next several days.\u00a0 Champi will reach the western end of the subtropical ridge and turn toward the north later in the weekend.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Champi will approach the northern Marianas in 24 to 30 hours.\u00a0 It could bring strong winds and heavy rain to those islands.\u00a0 Since the strongest thunderstorms are west of the center of circulation, conditions could start to deteriorate on some of the islands in less than 24 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Champi intensified on Wednesday and the National Weather Service issued watches and warnings for the northern Marianas.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Champi was located at latitude 15.5\u00b0N and longitude 151.9\u00b0E which put it about 450 miles (730 km) east of Saipan.\u00a0 Champi was moving toward the […]<\/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":[242,107,44,181,105,106,241,243],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760"}],"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=1760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1761,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1760\/revisions\/1761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}