Former Tropical Storm Ernesto strengthened to a hurricane northwest of Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Ernesto was located at latitude 20.5\u00b0N and longitude 70.6\u00b0W which put the center about 175 miles (285 km) northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico.\u00a0 Ernesto was moving toward the northwest at 16 m.p.h. (26 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 90 m.p.h. (145 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 991 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for the British Virgin Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Culebra and Vieques.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n A U.S. Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft found that formed Tropical Storm Ernesto had strengthened to a hurricane northwest of Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the center of Ernesto’s circulation.\u00a0 An eye appeared to be forming at the center of Hurricane Ernesto.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the center of Ernesto.\u00a0 Storms near the center of circulation generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the hurricane.<\/p>\n Winds to hurricane force extended out 30 miles (50 km) in the northeastern quadrant of Hurricane Ernesto.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 230 miles (370 km) from the center of Ernesto’s circulation.<\/p>\n Hurricane Ernesto will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Ernesto will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region where the upper level\u00a0 winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Ernesto will intensify during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n Hurricane Ernesto will move around the western side of a subtropical high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Ernesto toward the north-northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Hurricane Ernesto will move away from Puerto Rico.\u00a0 Ernesto could approach Bermuda on Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Tropical Storm Ernesto strengthened to a hurricane northwest of Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Ernesto was located at latitude 20.5\u00b0N and longitude 70.6\u00b0W which put the center about 175 miles (285 km) northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico.\u00a0 Ernesto was moving toward the northwest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[446,447,31,829,1619,1154,22,1710,1164,804,1620],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835"}],"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=20835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20836,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20835\/revisions\/20836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}