Tropical Cyclone Errol rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane over the South Indian Ocean northwest of Australia on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Errol was located at latitude 14.2\u00b0S and longitude 118.9\u00b0E which put the center about 325 miles (520 km) northwest of Broome, Australia.\u00a0 Errol was moving toward the southwest at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 160 m.p.h. (260 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 195 m.p.h. (315 km\/h). \u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 919 mb.<\/p>\n
A Watch is in effect for the coast of Western Australia from Kuri Bay to Broome.\u00a0 The Watch includes Derby.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Tropical Cyclone Errol rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Wednesday.\u00a0 A very small circular eye with a diameter of 10 miles (16 km) was at the center of Errol\u2019s 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 were revolving around the core of Tropical Cyclone Errol.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Errol generated upper level divergence that pumped large quantities of mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n The size of the circulation around Tropical Cyclone Errol increased while Errol rapidly intensified.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out 40 miles (65 km) from the center of Errol\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 90 miles (145 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Errol.<\/p>\n The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Errol is 35.0.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size index (HSI) is 12.8 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 47.8.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Errol is similar in size and intensity to Hurricane Michael when Michael hit Northwest Florida in 2018.<\/p>\n Tropical Cyclone Errol will move through an environment favorable for a powerful tropical cyclone during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Errol will move over water where where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the axis of an upper level ridge over Australia and the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the axis of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Errol could continue to intensify during the next 24 hours unless an eyewall replacement cycle occurs.\u00a0 If the inner end of a rainband wraps around the existing eye and eyewall, then concentric eyewalls could cause Errol to weaken.\u00a0 An upper level trough over the South Indian Ocean will approach Tropical Cyclone Errol on Thursday.\u00a0 The upper level trough will cause the vertical wind shear to increase.\u00a0 More vertical wind shear will cause Errol to weaken.<\/p>\n Tropical Cyclone Errol will move around the northwestern part of a high pressure system over Australia.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Errol toward the southwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Cyclone Errol will remain north of Western Australia during the next day or so.\u00a0 The upper level trough over the South Indian Ocean will cause Errol to start to move back toward the southeast on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tropical Cyclone Errol rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane over the South Indian Ocean northwest of Australia on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Errol was located at latitude 14.2\u00b0S and longitude 118.9\u00b0E which put the center about 325 miles (520 km) northwest of Broome, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,48,2],"tags":[2480,933,2858,3911,650,1895,2481,3910,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22267"}],"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=22267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22268,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22267\/revisions\/22268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}