Hurricane Kirk strengthened to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale over the Tropical Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Kirk was located at latitude 21.5\u00b0N and longitude 47.5\u00b0W which put the center about 1670 miles (2685 km) southwest of the Azores.\u00a0 Kirk was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 145 m.p.h. (235 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 170 m.p.h. (275 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 935 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Kirk rapidly continued to intensify on Thursday.\u00a0 Kirk reached Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 A circular eye with a diameter of 17 miles (28 km) was at the center of Kirk\u2019s 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 strong 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 continue to decrease.<\/p>\n
The core of Hurricane Kirk contracted as Kirk intensified on Thursday.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out 35 miles (55 km) from the center of Kirk\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 185 miles (295 km) from the center of Hurricane Kirk.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) was 29.9.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 13.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 42.9.<\/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 30\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 is likely to intensify during the next 24 hours unless the inner end of a rainband wraps around the existing eye and eyewall.\u00a0 If concentric eyewalls form, then an eyewall replacement cycle would cause Kirk to weaken.\u00a0 If an eyewall replacement cycle does not occur, then Hurricane Kirk could strengthen to a Category 5 hurricane.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Kirk will move around the western part of a subtropical high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Kirk toward the north-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, the upper level divergence from Hurricane Kirk was inhibiting the intensification of Tropical Storm Leslie.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Leslie was located at latitude 10.0\u00b0N and longitude 32.0\u00b0W which put the center about 610 miles (980 km) west-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 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 1001 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Kirk strengthened to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale over the Tropical Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Kirk was located at latitude 21.5\u00b0N and longitude 47.5\u00b0W which put the center about 1670 miles (2685 km) southwest of the Azores.\u00a0 Kirk 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":[269,528,268,527,318,760,3766,650,1281,1299,1301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21298"}],"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=21298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21299,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21298\/revisions\/21299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}