Tropical Cyclone Ditwah formed over the southwestern Bay of Bengal on Thursday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Ditwah was located at latitude 7.8\u00b0N and longitude 81.6\u00b0E which put the center about 10 miles (15 km) northwest of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Ditwah was moving toward the northwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. (50 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1002 mb.<\/p>\n
A low pressure system over the southwestern Bay of Bengal near Sri Lanka intensified on Thursday and the India Meteorological Department designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Ditwah.<\/p>\n
The center of Tropical Cyclone Ditwah was near the east coast of Sri Lanka.\u00a0 About half of Ditwah’s circulation was over Sri Lanka.\u00a0 A band of thunderstorms was wrapped around the northern and western sides of the center of Tropical Cyclone Ditwah.\u00a0 Other bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the center of Ditwah’s circulation.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Ditwah generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away to the west of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease slowly.<\/p>\n
The distribution of wind speeds in Tropical Cyclone Ditwah was asymmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 175 miles (280 km) in the southern half of Ditwah’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 80 miles (130 km) in the northern side of Tropical Cyclone Ditwah.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Ditwah will move through an environment somewhat favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Ditwah will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the western part of an upper level ridge that is over Southeast Asia and the Bay of Bengal.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will produce southeasterly winds that will blow toward the top of Ditwah’s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification.\u00a0 The fact that almost half of Ditwah’s circulation is over Sri Lanka will also inhibit intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Ditwah could intensify during the next 24 hours even with moderate vertical wind shear, if the center of its circulation remains over water.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Ditwah will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system over the Bay of Bengal.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Ditwah toward the northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Tropical Cyclone Ditwah will move along the coast of northeastern Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Ditwah could approach the coast of India near Chennai within 72 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Ditwah will produce strong winds and heavy rain over Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Heavy rain will cause flash floods in some locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Ditwah formed over the southwestern Bay of Bengal on Thursday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Ditwah was located at latitude 7.8\u00b0N and longitude 81.6\u00b0E which put the center about 10 miles (15 km) northwest of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.\u00a0 Ditwah was moving toward the northwest at 7 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":[48,2],"tags":[588,3189,135,1366,4053,56,264,369,4052],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668"}],"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=23668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23669,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23668\/revisions\/23669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}