Hurricane Patricia intensified rapidly on Thursday and it reached Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed in Patricia increased from 60 m.p.h. to 130 m.p.h. in 24 hours, which qualified as very rapid intensification.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Patricia was located at latitude 15.4\u00b0N and longitude 104.6\u00b0W which put it about 250 miles (400 km) south of Manzanillo, Mexico.\u00a0 Patricia was moving toward the west-northwest at 13 m.p.h. (20 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 130 m.p.h. (210 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 160 m.p.h. (260 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 953 mb.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Patricia was 25.1, the Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 10.4 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index was 35.5.\u00a0 Those indices mean that Patricia is almost as strong and just a little larger than Hurricane Charley was when it hit southwest Florida in 2004.<\/p>\n
The government of Mexico has issued a Hurricane Warning for the portion of the coast from San Blas to Punta San Telmo.\u00a0 It has also issued a Hurricane Watch and a Tropical Storm Warning for the portion of the coast from Punta San Telmo to Lazaro Cardenas.<\/p>\n
Patricia is a small hurricane, but it has a very well organized circulation.\u00a0 A ring of strong thunderstorms surrounds a small, 12 mile (19km), eye (sometimes called a pinhole eye because of the way it looks on satellite images).\u00a0 Multiple spiral bands are rotating around the core fo the circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the core are generating strong upper level divergence in all directions.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Patricia remains in a very favorable environment.\u00a0 It is over water were the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge over the top of Patricia is keeping the vertical wind shear to a minimum.\u00a0 Patricia could intensify further, although if concentric eyewalls develop, then eyewall replacement cycles could produce fluctuations in wind speeds.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Patricia is moving around the western end of a ridge that extends from the Gulf of Mexico over Mexico.\u00a0 When Patricia reaches the end of ridge on Friday, it will turn toward the north.\u00a0 As the hurricane moves farther north it will encounter westerly winds in the southern end of an upper level trough.\u00a0 Those winds will turn Hurricane Patricia toward the northeast.<\/p>\n
On its anticipated track Hurricane Patricia could approach the west coast of Mexico late on Friday.\u00a0 It will pose a serious threat to the coast at that time.\u00a0 Patricia will bring strong winds, heavy rain and a storm surge to the coast.\u00a0 Very heavy rain could fall as Hurricane Patricia moves inland and serious flooding will be possible, especially in the more mountainous areas of Mexico.\u00a0 The remnants of Hurricane Patricia could eventually move over parts of Texas and add moisture and rain to that region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Patricia intensified rapidly on Thursday and it reached Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed in Patricia increased from 60 m.p.h. to 130 m.p.h. in 24 hours, which qualified as very rapid intensification.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Patricia was located at latitude 15.4\u00b0N and […]<\/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":[251,252,253,24,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814"}],"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=1814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1815,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}