Tropical Cyclone Bheki intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane over the South Indian Ocean on Saturday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki was located at latitude 15.4\u00b0S and longitude 71.4\u00b0E which put the center about 610 miles (980 km) east-northeast of Rodrigues.\u00a0 Bheki was moving toward the southwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h). The maximum sustained wind speed was 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 145 m.p.h. (235 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 961 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Bheki strengthened to the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Saturday.\u00a0 A circular eye formed at the center of Bheki’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 thunderstorm were revolving around the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Bheki\u2019s circulation generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
The size of the circulation around Tropical Cyclone Bheki increased on Saturday when Bheki intensified.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out 65 miles (105 km) from the center of Bheki\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 150 miles (240 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Bheki was 20.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 18.7 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size INdex (HWISI) was 39.3.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Bheki was similar in intensity to Hurricane Rita when Rita hit Southwest Louisiana in 2005.\u00a0 Bheki was a little smaller than Rita was.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Bheki will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Bheki will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the middle of the upper level ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Bheki is likely to continue to intensify during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Bheki will move around the northwestern part of a high pressure system over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Bheki toward the southwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Cyclone Bheki will move toward Rodrigues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Bheki intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane over the South Indian Ocean on Saturday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki was located at latitude 15.4\u00b0S and longitude 71.4\u00b0E which put the center about 610 miles (980 km) east-northeast of Rodrigues.\u00a0 Bheki was moving toward the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,2],"tags":[598,3810,650,1439,599,3809],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21643"}],"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=21643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21644,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21643\/revisions\/21644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}