Typhoon Ragasa rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane east of northern Luzon on Saturday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Typhoon Ragasa was located at latitude 17.4\u00b0N and longitude 128.4\u00b0E which put the center about 475 miles (765 km) east of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Ragasa was moving toward the northwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 145 m.p.h. (235 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 957 mb.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Ragasa rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane east of northern Luzon on Saturday.\u00a0 A small circular eye was present at the center of Ragasa’s 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 center of Typhoon Ragasa.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Ragasa generated strong upper level divergence that pumped mass away in all directions from the typhoon.\u00a0 The removal of large quantities of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Typhoon Ragasa was large.\u00a0 Winds to typhoon force extended out 70 miles (110 km) from the center of Ragasa\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 275 miles (445 km) in the southern half of Typhoon Ragasa.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 165 miles (265 km) in the northern side of Ragasa’s circulation.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Ragasa was 20.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 20.3 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 40.9.\u00a0 Typhoon Ragasa was similar in intensity to Hurricane Rita when Rita hit southwest Louisiana in 2005.\u00a0 Ragasa was not as large as Rita was.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Ragasa will move through an environment very favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Ragasa will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Typhoon Ragasa will intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Ragasa could continue to intensify rapidly.\u00a0 Typhoon Ragasa could strengthen to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Ragasa will move around the southern side of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Ragasa toward the west-northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Typhoon Ragasa will be north of Luzon in 48 hours.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Ragasa will bring very strong winds and heavy rain to the Batanes Islands and to the Babuyan Islands.\u00a0 Ragasa could cause a storm surge of up to 16 feet (5 meters.\u00a0 Typhoon Ragasa could cause catastrophic damage on those islands.\u00a0 Typhoon Ragasa will also cause strong winds and heavy rain in northern Luzon.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods in some locations.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the Western North Pacific Ocean, Typhoon Neoguri continued to strengthen southeast of Japan.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Typhoon Neoguri was located at latitude 26.5\u00b0N and longitude 154.5\u00b0E which put the center about 1100 miles (1775 km) east-southeast of Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Neoguri was moving toward the west-northwest at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 110 m.p.h. (175 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 130 m.p.h. (210 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 955 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Ragasa rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane east of northern Luzon on Saturday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Typhoon Ragasa was located at latitude 17.4\u00b0N and longitude 128.4\u00b0E which put the center about 475 miles (765 km) east of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Ragasa was moving toward the northwest […]<\/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":[239,242,1817,3284,3285,650,44,103,1750,64,3980,474,1763,3981,240,243],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23140"}],"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=23140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23141,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23140\/revisions\/23141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}