Typhoon Kong-rey was approaching Taiwan on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Typhoon Kong-rey was located at latitude 20.8\u00b0N and longitude 123.2\u00b0E which put the center about 350 miles (565 km) south-southeast of Taipei, Taiwan.\u00a0 Kong-rey was moving toward the northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 140 m.p.h. (2225 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 165 m.p.h. (265 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 934 mb.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Kong-rey went through an eyewall replacement cycle during the past 18 hours.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the existing eye and eyewall.\u00a0 Concentric eyewalls formed.\u00a0 The inner eyewall had a diameter of 25 miles (40 km).\u00a0 The outer eyewall had a diameter of 175 miles (285 km).\u00a0 The inner eyewall started to weaken after the outer eyewall formed.\u00a0 Typhoon Kong-rey weakened a little after the eyewall replacement cycle began<\/p>\n
A large eye with a diameter of 175 miles (285 km) was at the center of Kong-rey’s circulation.\u00a0 A ring of thunderstorms surrounded the large eye and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Typhoon Kong-rey.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Kong-rey\u2019 circulation generated strong upper level divergence that pumped large quantities of mass away from the typhoon.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass in the upper levels was nearly equal to the large quantities of mass flowing into the center of Typhoon Kong-rey in the lower levels of the atmosphere.\u00a0 The near balance of upper level divergence and lower level convergence of mass caused the surface pressure to increase very gradually.<\/p>\n
The eyewall replacement cycle caused the circulation around Typhoon Kong-rey to increase in size.\u00a0 Winds to typhoon force extended out 120 miles (195 km) from the center of Kong-rey\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 260 miles (420 km) from the center of Typhoon Kong-rey.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Kong-rey was 28.3.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 42.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 70.3.\u00a0 Typhoon Kong-rey was bigger and stronger than Hurricane Ivan was when Ivan made landfall on the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico in 2004.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Kong-rey will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 12 hours.\u00a0 Kong-rey will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the axis of an upper level ridge over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the axis of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Typhoon Kong-rey could intensify during the next 12 hours if the large eye starts to contract.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Kong-rey will move around the southern part of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Kong-rey toward the northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Typhoon Kong-rey will reach Taiwan in 18 hours.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Kong-rey is likely to be the equivalent of a major hurricane when it reaches Taiwan.\u00a0 Kong-rey will bring strong, gusty winds and heavy rain to Taiwan.\u00a0 Heavy rain will cause flash floods.\u00a0 Typhoon Kong-rey could also cause a storm surge of up to 13 feet (4 meter)s along the east coast of Taiwan.\u00a0 Typhoon Kong-rey will be capable of causing extensive major damage in Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Kong-rey was approaching Taiwan on Wednesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Typhoon Kong-rey was located at latitude 20.8\u00b0N and longitude 123.2\u00b0E which put the center about 350 miles (565 km) south-southeast of Taipei, Taiwan.\u00a0 Kong-rey was moving toward the northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind […]<\/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":[220,650,1291,1081,42,1297,222],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21485"}],"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=21485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21486,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21485\/revisions\/21486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}