Tropical Cyclone Pita formed over the South Pacific Ocean west of Niue on Friday.\u00a0 At 1:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Pita was located at latitude 18.5\u00b0S and longitude 172.2\u00b0W which put the center about 155 miles (250 km) west-northwest of Niue.\u00a0 Pita was moving toward the east-southeast at 14 m.p.h. (22 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 991 mb.<\/p>\n
A low pressure system over the South Pacific Ocean west of Niue strengthened on Friday and the Fiji Meteorological Service designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Pita.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Pita organized quickly on Friday.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the eastern and southern sides of the center of Pita’s circulation.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the center of Tropical Cyclone Pita.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Pita generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Pita will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Pita will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the southern part of an upper level ridge over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will produce westerly winds that will blow toward the top of Pita’s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification, but the wind shear will not be enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Pita is likely to intensify during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Pita will move around the northern side of a high pressure system over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Pita toward the east-southeast during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Tropical Cyclone Pita will reach Niue in less than 12 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone PIta will bring strong winds and heavy rain to Niue.\u00a0 Heavy rain is likely to cause flash floods in some locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Pita formed over the South Pacific Ocean west of Niue on Friday.\u00a0 At 1:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Pita was located at latitude 18.5\u00b0S and longitude 172.2\u00b0W which put the center about 155 miles (250 km) west-northwest of Niue.\u00a0 Pita was moving toward the east-southeast at 14 m.p.h. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,2],"tags":[3834,306,3833,626,3832],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21832"}],"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=21832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21833,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21832\/revisions\/21833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}