Hurricane Olaf intensified rapidly on Monday and it reached Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Monday the center of Hurricane Olaf was located at latitude 10.1\u00b0N and longitude 139.5\u00b0W which put it about 1235 miles (1985 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Olaf was moving toward the west at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 140 m.p.h. (220 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 165 m.p.h. (270 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 949 mb.<\/p>\n
Olaf is a small but well organized hurricane.\u00a0 The core is very symmetrical.\u00a0 Hurricane Olaf has a clear eye with a diameter of about 12 miles (19 km\/h) and the eye is surrounded by a ring of strong thunderstorms.\u00a0 Several spiral rainbands are rotating around the inner core of the hurricane.\u00a0 Upper level outflow channels to the northeast and southwest of Olaf are carrying mass away from the center of circulation, which is allowing the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Olaf is moving just south of a band of stronger upper level westerly winds.\u00a0 It is in an area of modest vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The ocean beneath Hurricane Olaf has Sea Surface Temperatures\u00a0 near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 The compact structure of Olaf allowed the hurricane to efficiently convert energy it extracted from the ocean to kinetic energy associated with higher wind speeds.\u00a0 Olaf could remain in a favorable environment for another day or two, which may allow for further intensification.\u00a0 However, if eyewall replacement cycles begin to occur, they will cause fluctuations in the intensity of Hurricane Olaf.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge north of Olaf is steering the hurricane toward the west and that general steering motion is expected to continue for another day or two.\u00a0 The western end of the subtropical ridge is expected to weaken later this week and that should allow Olaf to turn toward the north.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Olaf would turn toward the north before it reaches the Hawaiian Islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Olaf intensified rapidly on Monday and it reached Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Monday the center of Hurricane Olaf was located at latitude 10.1\u00b0N and longitude 139.5\u00b0W which put it about 1235 miles (1985 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Olaf was moving toward the west at 10 m.p.h. […]<\/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":[247,248,23,246],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795"}],"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=1795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1796,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1795\/revisions\/1796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}