The eye of destructive Tropical Cyclone Winston moved over the northern part of Viti Levu and then continued west of Fiji.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Winston was located at latitude 17.5\u00b0S and longitude 174.4\u00b0E which put it about 425 miles (685 km) east of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Winston was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 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 937 mb.\u00a0 Winston was the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.<\/p>\n
The core of intense Tropical Cyclone Winston was disrupted as it moved across the northern portion of Viti Levu.\u00a0 However, the core reorganized once it moved back over water.\u00a0 It has a well formed eye surrounded by a circular eyewall.\u00a0 Several rainbands are spiraling around the core.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the core of Tropical Cyclone Winston are generating upper level divergence.<\/p>\n
The environment surrounding Tropical Cyclone Winston is a little less favorable for intensification.\u00a0 Winston is still moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 However, an upper level ridge located to the southeast of Winston is generating easterly winds that are inhibiting upper level divergence to the east of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 There is still strong upper level divergence in the western half of the circulation.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear has caused Winston to weaken slowly, but the shear has not been strong enough to disrupt the reorganization of the circulation.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Winston could maintain its intensity or even strengthen somewhat during the next day or two.<\/p>\n
The subtropical ridge southeast of Winston is steering the tropical cyclone toward the west and that general motion is expected to continue for at least another 24 hours.\u00a0 Guidance from numerical models suggest that Winston will turn toward the south early next week.\u00a0 However, the guidance from the models has consistently forecast a turn to the south that has not yet occurred.\u00a0 The guidance predicts that Tropical Cyclone Winston will turn south before it can affect Vanuatu, but people in that country should monitor the progress of Winston closely.<\/p>\n
Radar and satellite information indicate that the northern eyewall of Tropical Cyclone Winston may have moved over the southern part of Vanua Levu.\u00a0 The eye moved across the northern part of Viti Levu.\u00a0 Press reports indicated Winston produced significant wind damage and power outages in parts of Fiji.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The eye of destructive Tropical Cyclone Winston moved over the northern part of Viti Levu and then continued west of Fiji.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Winston was located at latitude 17.5\u00b0S and longitude 174.4\u00b0E which put it about 425 miles (685 km) east of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Winston […]<\/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":[336,89,342,338,307,340,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241"}],"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=2241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2241\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}