Tropical Cyclone Fytia formed over the Mozambique Channel on Thursday.\u00a0 At 7:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Fytia was located at latitude 15.6\u00b0S and longitude 42.4\u00b0E which put the center about 270 miles (435 km) west of Mahajanga, Madagascar.\u00a0 Fytia was moving toward the east-southeast at 4 m.p.h. (6 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 996 mb.<\/p>\n
A low pressure system over the Mozambique Channel strengthened on Thursday and Meteo France La Reunion designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Fytia.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Fytia organized quickly on Thursday.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the center of Fytia’s circulation.\u00a0 A small eye appeared to be forming at the center of Tropical Cyclone Fytia.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms revolved around the center of Fytia’s circulation.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Fytia generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Fytia was small.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 70 miles (110 km) from the center of Fytia’s circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Fytia will move through an environment very favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Fytia will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge that is over the Mozambique Channel.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak in the middle of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Fytia will intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Fytia could rapidly intensify to the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Friday.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Fytia will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system that is over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Fytia slowly toward the east-southeast during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Cyclone Fytia will approach the west coast of Madagascar between Soalala and Besalampy on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Fytia will bring strong winds and locally heavy rain to the coast of west central Madagascar.\u00a0 Heavy rain is very likely to cause flash floods in some locations.\u00a0 Fytia could also cause a storm surge of up to 7 feet (2 meters) along parts of the west coast of Madagascar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Fytia formed over the Mozambique Channel on Thursday.\u00a0 At 7:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Fytia was located at latitude 15.6\u00b0S and longitude 42.4\u00b0E which put the center about 270 miles (435 km) west of Mahajanga, Madagascar.\u00a0 Fytia was moving toward the east-southeast at 4 m.p.h. (6 km\/h).\u00a0 The […]<\/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":[350,4093,4091,85,4092,1456,351,1859,4090],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23955"}],"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=23955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23956,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23955\/revisions\/23956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}