Sufficient evidence of a surface center of circulation within a broad area of thunderstorms near the Equator prompted the Central Pacific Hurricane Center to classify the system as Tropical Depression 09C.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Depression 09C (TD09C) was located at latitude 2.8\u00b0N and longitude 177.8\u00b0W which put it about 1850 miles (2975 km) southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.\u00a0 TD09C was moving toward the west-northwest at 8 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 35 m.p.h. (55 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1001 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Depression 09C is not particularly well organized and there may be multiple small centers inside the larger circulation of the system.\u00a0 One small center of circulation is near a cluster of thunderstorms in the northern half of the circulation and that center is currently being designated as the center of TD09C.\u00a0 Another circulation center is near latitude 1.0\u00b0N and longitude 174.6\u00b0W, but there are no thunderstorms near that center.\u00a0 The main area of thunderstorms is north of the official center of circulation.\u00a0 There are a few partial spiral bands northeast of the center of the depression.<\/p>\n
The environment around TD09C is only marginal for intensification.\u00a0 The depression is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 So, there is plenty of energy in the upper ocean to support intensification.\u00a0 However, a strong upper level ridge east of TD09C is generating strong southeasterly winds over the top of the depression.\u00a0 The strong vertical wind shear is contributing to the poor organization of TD09C.\u00a0 The wind shear is likely to inhibit intensification during the next several days.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge east of TD09C is expected to steer the depression slowly toward the west-northwest during the next few days.\u00a0 The actual track of TD09C could be somewhat erratic, especially if some of the small centers of circulation dissipate and additional centers form in clusters of thunderstorms that develop.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Depression 09C could approach Tarawa in about three days and it could be approaching the Marshall Islands this weekend.<\/p>\n
The most remarkable thing about Tropical Depression 09C is that is developed so close to the Equator.\u00a0 Conventional wisdom often says that tropical cyclones cannot form near the Equator because the Coriolis effect is too small.\u00a0 However, although tropical cyclones are rare near the Equator, Tropical Depression 09C is another example that they can form in that region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sufficient evidence of a surface center of circulation within a broad area of thunderstorms near the Equator prompted the Central Pacific Hurricane Center to classify the system as Tropical Depression 09C.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Depression 09C (TD09C) was located at latitude 2.8\u00b0N and longitude 177.8\u00b0W which put it […]<\/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":[303,304,126,305,302],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054"}],"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=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2055,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}