Typhoon Usagi rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane over the Western North Pacific Ocean east of Luzon on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Typhoon Usagi was located at latitude 16.5\u00b0N and longitude 124.8\u00b0E which put the center about 485 miles (780 km) east-southeast of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Usagi was moving toward the west-northwest at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 130 m.p.h. (210 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 160 m.p.h. (260 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 949 mb.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Usagi rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale east of Luzon on Wednesday.\u00a0 A small circular eye with a diameter of 5 miles (8 km) formed at the center of Usagi’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 core of Typhoon Usagi.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Usagi generated strong upper level divergence that pumped large quantities of mass away from the typhoon in all directions.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Typhoon Usagi was small.\u00a0 Winds to typhoon force extended out 30 miles (50 km) from the center of Usagi’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 80 miles (130 km) from the center of Typhoon Usagi.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Usagi was 25.1.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 9.4 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 34.5.\u00a0 Typhoon Usagi was similar in size to Hurricane Harvey when Harvey hit Texas in 2017.\u00a0 Usagi was not as big as Harvey was.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Usagi will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Usagi will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\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 Usagi could continue to intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 However, since the core of Usagi’s circulation is so small, the inner end of a rainband could wrap around the core.\u00a0 If concentric eyewalls form, an eyewall replacement cycle would halt the intensification of Typhoon Usagi.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Usagi will move around the southern side of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Usagi toward the west-northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Typhoon Usagi will move near northeast Luzon in 18 hours.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Usagi will bring strong winds and heavy rain to northern Luzon.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods and mudslides in some locations.\u00a0 Usagi could cause a storm surge of up to 13 feet ( 4 meters) on the coast of northeastern Luzon.\u00a0 The area likely to be hit by Usagi was just hit by Typhoon Toraji a few days ago.\u00a0 Typhoon Usagi will complicate recovery efforts in Luzon.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the Western North Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Toraji was approaching the coast of China east of Hong Kong, and Tropical Storm Man-yi was moving away from the Marianas.<\/p>\n
At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Toraji was located at latitude 21.9\u00b0N and longitude 114.9\u00b0E which put the center about 65 miles (105 km) east-southeast of Hong Kong.\u00a0 Toraji was moving toward the north at 14 m.p.h. (22 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 995 mb.<\/p>\n
At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Man-yi was located at latitude 11.7\u00b0N and longitude 140.4\u00b0E which put the center about 280 miles (450 km) west-southwest of Guam.\u00a0 Man-yi was moving toward the west-southwest at 16 m.p.h. (26 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 1002 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Usagi rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane over the Western North Pacific Ocean east of Luzon on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Typhoon Usagi was located at latitude 16.5\u00b0N and longitude 124.8\u00b0E which put the center about 485 miles (780 km) east-southeast of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Usagi […]<\/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":[242,563,277,1817,43,45,127,650,103,1376,136,64,1378,1375,3800,1382,1381,243,564,278],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21604"}],"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=21604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21605,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21604\/revisions\/21605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}