Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi brought wind and rain to northern Madagascar on Saturday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi was located at latitude 13.1\u00b0S and longitude 48.4\u00b0E which put the center about 60 miles (95 km) south of Antsiranana, Madagascar.\u00a0 Dikeledi was moving toward the west-southwest at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 85 m.p.h. (135 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 980 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi intensified to the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon before it reached northern Madagascar on Saturday.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the center of Dikeledi’s circulation.\u00a0 An eye appeared intermittently on microwave satellite images.\u00a0 The intermittent 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 were revolving around the core to Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi.\u00a0 Storms near the core 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 circulation around Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi was symmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out 25 miles (40 km) from the center of Dikeledi’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 100 miles (160 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi is 12.7.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 9.5 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 22.2\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi is similar in size and intensity to Hurricane Isaias when Isaias hit North Carolina in 2020.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi will move across northern Madagascar during the next few hours.\u00a0 Dikeledi is capable of causing localized minor wind damage.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi will also drop heavy rain over parts of northern Madagascar.\u00a0 Heavy rain is likely to cause flash floods in some locations.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi will move around the northern side of a high pressure system over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Dikeledi toward the west-southwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi will move across northern Madagascar during the next few hours.\u00a0 The center of Dikeledi’s circulation will pass near Mayotte on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi will weaken while it moves across northern Madagascar.\u00a0 Dikeledi will will move through an environment favorable for intensification when it reaches the northern Mozambique Channel on Sunday.\u00a0 Dikeledi will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\u00b0C. It will move under the northern part of an upper level ridge over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will produce easterly winds that will blow toward the top of Dikeledi\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause some vertical wind shear, but the wind shear will not be enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi is likely to intensify on Sunday when it gets to the northern Mozambique Channel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi brought wind and rain to northern Madagascar on Saturday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi was located at latitude 13.1\u00b0S and longitude 48.4\u00b0E which put the center about 60 miles (95 km) south of Antsiranana, Madagascar.\u00a0 Dikeledi was moving toward the west-southwest at 15 m.p.h. (24 […]<\/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":[948,2479,3830,650,85,3820,1456,328,3831],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841"}],"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=21841"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21842,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21841\/revisions\/21842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}