Former Typhoon Koto weakened back to a tropical storm over the South China Sea on Thursday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Koto was located at latitude 12.3\u00b0N and longitude 113.5\u00b0E which put the center about 435 miles (705 km) southeast of Da Nang, Vietnam.\u00a0 Koto was moving toward the south-southwest at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 70 m.p.h. (110 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 85 m.p.h. (135 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 986 mb.<\/p>\n
Former Typhoon Koto moved into a region of drier air and weakened back to a tropical storm over the South China Sea on Thursday.\u00a0 A high pressure system over China was pumping drier air over the South China Sea.\u00a0 Many of the thunderstorms in Tropical Storm Koto weakened when the drier air was pulled into Koto’s circulation.\u00a0 Most of the remaining thunderstorms were occurring in bands in the northwestern part of Tropical Storm Koto.\u00a0 Bands in the other parts of Koto’s circulation consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.<\/p>\n
Storms near the center of Tropical Storm Koto generated less upper level divergence.\u00a0 The removal of mass in the upper levels of Koto’s circulation was less than the inflow of mass in the lower levels of the atmosphere.\u00a0 As a result, the surface pressure was increasing.<\/p>\n
The distribution of wind speeds in Tropical Storm Koto continued to be very asymmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 205 miles (335 km) in the northern side of Koto’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 70 miles (110 km) in the southern side of Tropical Storm Koto.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Koto will move through an environment that will be unfavorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Koto will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the southern part of an upper level ridge that is over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will produce southeasterly winds that will blow toward the top of Koto\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 In addition, Tropical Storm Koto will continue to move through the region of drier air that is over the western part of the South China Sea.\u00a0 Moderate vertical wind shear and the effects of drier air will cause Tropical Storm Koto to continue to weaken during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Koto will be in a region where the steering currents are weak during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Storm Koto is likely to meander slowly over the South China Sea on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Typhoon Koto weakened back to a tropical storm over the South China Sea on Thursday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Koto was located at latitude 12.3\u00b0N and longitude 113.5\u00b0E which put the center about 435 miles (705 km) southeast of Da Nang, Vietnam.\u00a0 Koto was moving toward the […]<\/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":[924,1649,4042,4041,63,925],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23671"}],"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=23671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23672,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23671\/revisions\/23672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}