Tropical Cyclone Gezani intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane east of Madagascar on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gezani was located at latitude 18.1\u00b0S and longitude 49.5\u00b0E which put the center about 105 miles (165 km) east of Toamasina, Madagascar.\u00a0 Gezani was moving toward the west at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 125 m.p.h. (200 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 155 m.p.h. (250 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 956 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gezani rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane east of Toamasina, Madagascar on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 A small circular eye with a diameter of 20 miles (32 km) was at the center of Tropical Cyclone Gezani.\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 revolved around the center of Gezani\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Gezani generated strong upper level divergence that pumped large quantities of mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n
The small circulation around Tropical Cyclone Gezani was very symmetrical.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out 30 miles (50 km) from the center of Gezani\u2019s circulation.\u00a0\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 80 miles (130 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Gezani.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Gezani is 23.6. The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 11.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 34.6. Tropical Cyclone Gezani is similar in size and intensity to Hurricane Dennis when Dennis hit Northwest Florida in 2005.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gezani will move through an environment that will be very favorable for intensification during the next few hours.\u00a0 Gezani will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge that is over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the middle of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gezani could continue to intensify during the next few hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gezani will move around the northern side of a high pressure system that is over the South Indian Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Gezani toward the west during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Cyclone Gezani will reach the east coast of Madagascar near Toamasina in a few hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gezani will be the equivalent of a major hurricane when it hits the east coast of Madagascar.\u00a0 Gezani will bring strong winds and locally heavy rain to central Madagascar. Heavy rain will cause flash floods in some locations.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gezani will be capable of causing major damage to central Madagascar.\u00a0 Widespread outages of electricity are likely.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gezani could also cause a storm surge of up to 13 feet (4 meters) along parts of the east coast of Madagascar near Toamasina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Gezani intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane east of Madagascar on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gezani was located at latitude 18.1\u00b0S and longitude 49.5\u00b0E which put the center about 105 miles (165 km) east of Toamasina, Madagascar.\u00a0 Gezani 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":[48,2],"tags":[997,4109,650,85,998,939,4108],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034"}],"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=24034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24035,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034\/revisions\/24035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}