Tropical Storm Melissa formed over the Caribbean Sea on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Storm Melissa was located at latitude 14.3\u00b0N and longitude 71.7\u00b0W which put the center about 300 miles (480 km) south of Port Au Prince, Haiti.\u00a0 Melissa was moving toward the west at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1003 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Watch is in effect for the southern coast of Haiti from the border with the Dominican Republic to Port Au Prince.<\/span><\/p>\n A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Jamaica.<\/span><\/p>\n A low pressure system over the Caribbean Sea south of Hispaniola strengthened on Tuesday morning and the U.S. National Hurricane Center designated the system as Tropical Storm Melissa.<\/p>\n More thunderstorms developed near the center of Tropical Storm Melissa on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 Thunderstorms were also forming in bands in the eastern side of Melissa’s circulation.\u00a0 Bands in the western side of Tropical Storm Melissa consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Melissa began to generate upper level divergence that pumped mass away to the east of the tropical storm.<\/p>\n The distribution of wind speeds in Tropical Storm Melissa was asymmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 115 miles (185 km) in the eastern side of Melissa’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 45 miles (75 km) in the western half of Tropical Storm Melissa.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Melissa will move through an environment that is favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Melissa will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the southeastern part of an upper level trough that is near Cuba.\u00a0 The upper level trough will produce westerly winds that will blow toward the top of Melissa’s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will produce moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The moderate vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification, but the wind shear will not be enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Melissa is likely to intensify during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Melissa will move around the western end of a high pressure system that is over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Melissa toward the west-northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Storm Melissa will move closer to Haiti and Jamaica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tropical Storm Melissa formed over the Caribbean Sea on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Storm Melissa was located at latitude 14.3\u00b0N and longitude 71.7\u00b0W which put the center about 300 miles (480 km) south of Port Au Prince, Haiti.\u00a0 Melissa was moving toward the west at 14 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":[3,2],"tags":[528,527,144,26,448,1733,2604,1741],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23414"}],"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=23414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23415,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23414\/revisions\/23415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}