Tropical Cyclone Bheki strengthened to the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it moved over the South Indian Ocean on Sunday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Sunday the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki was located at latitude 16.9\u00b0S and longitude 69.7\u00b0E which put the center about 475 miles (765 km) east-northeast of Rodrigues.\u00a0 Bheki was moving toward the southwest at 6 m.p.h. (10 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 947 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Bheki intensified to the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on Sunday.\u00a0 A small circular eye was present 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. Storms near the center of Bheki\u2019s circulation generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone. The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Bheki was symmetrical.\u00a0Winds 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 130 miles (210 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Bheki was 25.1. The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 20.3 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size INdex (HWISI) was 45.4. Tropical Cyclone Bheki was similar in intensity to Hurricane Harvey when Harvey hit Texas in 2017. Bheki was bigger than Harvey was.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Bheki will move through an environment that will become unfavorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Bheki will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 27\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level trough will approach Bheki from the west.\u00a0 The upper level level trough will produce northwesterly winds that will blow toward the top of Bheki’s circulation.\u00a0 Those upper level l winds will cause the vertical wind shear to increase.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Bheki will weaken during the next 24 hours because of more vertical wind shear.<\/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, the center Tropical Cyclone Bheki will pass north of Rodrigues in two days..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Bheki strengthened to the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it moved over the South Indian Ocean on Sunday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Sunday the center of Tropical Cyclone Bheki was located at latitude 16.9\u00b0S and longitude 69.7\u00b0E which put the center about 475 miles (765 km) […]<\/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\/21655"}],"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=21655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21656,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21655\/revisions\/21656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}