Hurricane Kirk rapidly intensified to a major hurricane over the tropical Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Kirk was located at latitude 19.5\u00b0N and longitude 44.5\u00b0W which put the center about 1140 miles (1835 km) east-northeast of the Lesser Antilles.\u00a0 Kirk was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 125 m.p.h. (200 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 150 m.p.h. (240 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 952 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Kirk rapidly intensified to a major hurricane on Wednesday.\u00a0 A circular eye with a diameter of 35 miles (55 km) formed at the center of Kirk’s circulation.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms revolved around the center of Hurricane Kirk.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Kirk generated upper level divergence that pumped large quantities of mass away from the hurricane.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass caused the pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n
The size of the circulation around Hurricane Kirk increased when Kirk intensified on Wednesday.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out 35 miles (55 km) from the center of Kirk’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 220 miles (355 km) from the center of Hurricane Kirk.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) was 23.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 13.4 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 37.0.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Kirk will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Kirk will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge over the central Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The winds are weak near the middle of the upper level ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Kirk will intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Kirk could strengthen to a Category 5 hurricane.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Kirk will move around the southwestern part of a subtropical high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Kirk toward the northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Hurricane Kirk will remain far from any land area.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, Tropical Storm Leslie formed southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Leslie was located at latitude 10.4\u00b0N and longitude 30.1\u00b0W which put the center about 490 miles (790 km) southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands.\u00a0 Leslie was moving toward the west at 6 m.p.h. (10 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. (65 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1005 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Kirk rapidly intensified to a major hurricane over the tropical Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Kirk was located at latitude 19.5\u00b0N and longitude 44.5\u00b0W which put the center about 1140 miles (1835 km) east-northeast of the Lesser Antilles.\u00a0 Kirk was moving toward the northwest at […]<\/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":[269,528,268,527,760,3766,1281,1299,20,1301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21290"}],"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=21290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21291,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21290\/revisions\/21291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}