Typhoon Ragasa intensified to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Saturday night east of northern Luzon.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Typhoon Ragasa was located at latitude 18.5\u00b0N and longitude 125.8\u00b0E which put the center about 280 miles (455 km) east of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Ragasa was moving toward the west-northwest at 8 m.p.h. (13 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 922 mb.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Ragasa intensified to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on Saturday night.\u00a0 A small circular eye was 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 60 miles (95 km) from the center of Ragasa\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 215 miles (345 km) from the center of Typhoon Ragasa.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Ragasa was 35.0.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 20.6 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 55.6.\u00a0 Typhoon Ragasa was similar in size and intensity to Hurricane Maria when Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Ragasa will move through an environment very favorable for a powerful typhoon 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 could continue to intensify during the next 24 hours unless an eyewall replacement cycle occurs.<\/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 24 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, powerful Typhoon Neoguri continued to spin far to the southeast of Japan.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Typhoon Neoguri was located at latitude 28.0\u00b0N and longitude 151.6\u00b0E which put the center about 880 miles (1420 km) east-southeast of Tokyo, Japan.\u00a0 Neoguri was moving toward the northwest at 11 m.p.h. (17 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 145 m.p.h. (235 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 175 m.p.h. (280 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 936 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Ragasa intensified to the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Saturday night east of northern Luzon.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Typhoon Ragasa was located at latitude 18.5\u00b0N and longitude 125.8\u00b0E which put the center about 280 miles (455 km) east of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Ragasa […]<\/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\/23147"}],"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=23147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23148,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23147\/revisions\/23148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}