Hurricane Iona rapidly intensified to a major hurricane over the Central Pacific Ocean south-southeast of Hawaii on Monday night.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Iona was located at latitude 10.8\u00b0N and longitude 153.2\u00b0W which put the center about 790 miles (1270 km) south-southeast of Honolulu, Hawaii.\u00a0 Iona was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 140 m.p.h. (225 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 964 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Iona continued to intensify rapidly during Monday night.\u00a0 A small circular eye formed at the center of Iona’s circulation.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of strong thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the center of Hurricane Iona.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Iona generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the hurricane.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Hurricane Iona was small.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out 20 miles (30 km) from the center of Iona\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 70 miles (110 km) from the center of Hurricane Iona.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Iona will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Iona will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the southern part of an upper level ridge over the Central Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will produce easterly winds that will blow toward the top of Iona\u2019s circulation. Those winds will cause some vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification, but the wind shear will not be enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Hurricane Iona could continue to intensify during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Iona will move around the southern side of a high pressure system over the Central Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Iona toward the west during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Hurricane Iona will pass south of Hawaii on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the Central Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Keli continue to move toward the west behind Hurricane Iona.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Storm Keli was located at latitude 12.5\u00b0N and longitude 146.6\u00b0W which put the center about 960 miles (1550 km) southeast of Honolulu, Hawaii.\u00a0 Keli was moving toward the west at 12 m.p.h. (19 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 1006 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Iona rapidly intensified to a major hurricane over the Central Pacific Ocean south-southeast of Hawaii on Monday night.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Iona was located at latitude 10.8\u00b0N and longitude 153.2\u00b0W which put the center about 790 miles (1270 km) south-southeast of Honolulu, Hawaii.\u00a0 Iona was moving toward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[309,3955,310,3956,23,1141,3953,3952,3958,3957],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22728"}],"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=22728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22729,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22728\/revisions\/22729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}