Tropical Storm Maria was spinning east of Japan on Friday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Maria was located at latitude 34.5\u00b0N and longitude 145.8\u00b0E which put the center about 400 miles (645 km) east of Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the north at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 987 mb.<\/p>\n
Former Typhoon Maria weakened back to a tropical storm over the Western North Pacific Ocean east of Japan on Friday.\u00a0 The wind in the western part of Maria appeared to pull drier air around the southern side of Maria’s circulation.\u00a0 The drier caused many of the thunderstorms in southern side of Tropical Storm Maria to dissipate.\u00a0 Bands in the southern half of Maria’s circulation consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were still occurring in bands in the northern half of Tropical Storm Maria.<\/p>\n
The distribution of wind speeds in Tropical Storm Maria was asymmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 140 miles (225 km) in the eastern side of Maria’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force only extended out 85 miles (135 km) in the western side of Tropical Storm Maria.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Maria will move through an environment somewhat favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Maria will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the eastern part of an upper level trough over Japan.\u00a0 The upper level trough will produce southwesterly winds that will blow toward the top of Maria\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause some vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear and the drier air in Tropical Storm Maria will inhibit intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Maria could intensify during the next 24 hours even with the effects of the wind shear and drier air.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Maria will move around the western side of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Maria toward the north during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Storm Maria will move closer to eastern Japan.\u00a0 Maria could start to move toward Honshu during the weekend.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Maria was spinning east of Japan on Friday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Maria was located at latitude 34.5\u00b0N and longitude 145.8\u00b0E which put the center about 400 miles (645 km) east of Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the north at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 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":[442,461,44,1064,474,827,443],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20789"}],"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=20789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20790,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20789\/revisions\/20790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}