Tropical Cyclone Maila weakened over the Solomon Sea on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Maila was located at latitude 8.3\u00b0S and longitude 154.3\u00b0E which put the center about 460 miles (740 km) east of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.\u00a0 Maila was moving toward the west at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 967 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Maila was continuing to weaken as it moved toward the southeastern part of Papua New Guinea on Thursday.\u00a0 Maila continued to move slowly back over cooler water that it had mixed to the surface of the Solomon Sea earlier this week.\u00a0 The remnant of a circular eye was still present at the center of Maila\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 The remnant 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 were revolving around the center of Tropical Cyclone Maila.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Maila generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The removal of mass of mass in the upper levels of the atmosphere was less than the convergence of mass in the lower levels.\u00a0 So, the surface pressure was increasing.<\/p>\n
The size of Tropical Cyclone Maila did not change much during the past 24 hours.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out 45 miles (75 km) from the center of Maila\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 160 miles (260 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Maila.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Maila is 16.4.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 16.6 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 33.0. Tropical Cyclone Maila is similar in intensity to Hurricane Idalia when Idalia hit Florida in 2023.\u00a0 Maila is bigger than Idalia was.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Maila will continue to be in an environment that will be slightly unfavorable for a strong tropical cyclone during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Maila will be over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures were originally near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will be under the middle of an upper level ridge that is over the Solomon Sea.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak near the middle of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Since Tropical Cyclone Maila has been moving slowly over the Solomon Sea, the strong winds near the surface of the ocean continue to mix cooler water to the surface.\u00a0 Maila will continue to move back over cooler water that has already mixed to the surface of the ocean earlier this week.\u00a0 The cooler water is likely to prevent further intensification of Tropical Cyclone Maila.\u00a0 Maila is likely to continue to weaken slowly during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Maila will move around the northern side of a high pressure system that is developing over the Coral Sea.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Maila toward the west during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Cyclone Maila will continue to move toward the southeastern part of Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
The center of Tropical Cyclone Maila will approach Woodlark Island in 24 hours.\u00a0 Maila will bring strong winds and locally heavy rain to the Kiriwina Islands, the D\u2019Entrecasteaux Islands, and the Louisiade Archipelago.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods in some locations. Tropical Cyclone Maila will be capable of causing serious damage.\u00a0 Maila could also produce a storm surge of up to 10 feet (3 meters) along the coasts of some of the islands.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the South Pacific Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Vaianu was finishing a transition to a powerful extratropical storm as it moved toward New Zealand.\u00a0 The New Zealand Met Service issued a Strong Wind Watch and a Heavy Rain Watch for the North Island.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Vaianu was located at latitude 27.1\u00b0S and longitude 179.0\u00b0E which put the center about 625 miles (1000 km) north of Auckland New Zealand.\u00a0 Vaianu was moving toward the south-southeast at 7 m.p.h. (11 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 981 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Maila weakened over the Solomon Sea on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Maila was located at latitude 8.3\u00b0S and longitude 154.3\u00b0E which put the center about 460 miles (740 km) east of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.\u00a0 Maila was moving toward the west at 5 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":[76,2],"tags":[3908,3913,1974,4153,650,4152,4154,4145,92,4148,4147,3909,3914,4146,4144,4149,4150,4151],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24268"}],"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=24268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24269,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24268\/revisions\/24269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}