Tropical Storm Wipha strengthened as it moved closer to Hong Kong on Saturday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Wipha was located at latitude 21.1\u00b0N and longitude 117.1\u00b0E which put the center about 240 miles (390 km) east-southeast of Hong Kong.\u00a0 Wipha was moving toward the west-northwest at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 976 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Wipha strengthened on Saturday as it moved closer to Hong Kong.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped most of the way around the center of Wipha’s circulation.\u00a0 More thunderstorms formed near the center of Tropical Storm Wipha.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were also occurring in bands in the southern and eastern parts of Wipha’s circulation.\u00a0 Bands in the northwestern quadrant of Tropical Storm Wipha consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Wipha generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away to the southwest of the tropical storm.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Tropical Storm Wipha was large.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 195 miles (315 km) from the center of Wipha’s circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Wipha will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 12 hours.\u00a0 Wipha will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C. It will move under the southeastern side of an upper level ridge that is over China.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will produce northeasterly winds that will blow toward the top of Wipha\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause some vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification but the wind shear may be enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Wipha could intensify during the next 12 hours.\u00a0 Wipha could strengthen to a typhoon during that time.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Wipha will move around the southern part of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean and eastern China.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Wipha toward the west-northwest during the next 18 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Tropical Storm Wipha will be near Hong Kong in 18 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Wipha will bring strong winds and locally heavy rain to Hong Kong.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods and mudslides.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Wipha will also bring strong winds and heavy rain to southern Guangdong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Wipha strengthened as it moved closer to Hong Kong on Saturday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Wipha was located at latitude 21.1\u00b0N and longitude 117.1\u00b0E which put the center about 240 miles (390 km) east-southeast of Hong Kong.\u00a0 Wipha was moving toward the west-northwest at 12 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":[2,5],"tags":[459,43,1610,127,1561,1562,460],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22657"}],"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=22657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22658,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22657\/revisions\/22658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}