Tropical Cyclone Ula intensified rapidly on Friday as it started to move toward Vanuatu.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Ula was located at latitude 18.7\u00b0S and longitude 173.5\u00b0E which put it about 545 miles (880 km) east-northeast of Noumea, New Caledonia.\u00a0 Ula was moving toward the southwest at 3 m.p.h. (5 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 95 m.p.h, (155 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 963 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Ula intensified rapidly on Friday because it was in a very favorable environment.\u00a0 Satellite images showed that there is a 15 mile (24 km) wide eye at the center of Ula.\u00a0 Additional spiral bands are rotating outside the core of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Ula has a very symmetrical structure.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the core of Ula are creating upper level divergence, especially to the west of the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Ula is in an environment favorable for further intensification.\u00a0 It is over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge to the east of Ula is producing northeasterly winds over the top of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 However, the vertical wind shear is only modest and further intensification is possible.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Ula could become the equivalent of a major hurricane during the weekend.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge east of Ula is starting to steer the tropical cyclone toward the southwest.\u00a0 That general motion is expected to continue for the next several days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Ula could approach the southern islands of Vanuatu in about 48 hours.\u00a0 It could be a very strong tropical cyclone when it nears those islands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Ula intensified rapidly on Friday as it started to move toward Vanuatu.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Ula was located at latitude 18.7\u00b0S and longitude 173.5\u00b0E which put it about 545 miles (880 km) east-northeast of Noumea, New Caledonia.\u00a0 Ula was moving toward the southwest at 3 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,2],"tags":[313,89,88,300,298,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096"}],"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=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2097,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}