Typhoon Mekkhala rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane on Sunday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Typhoon Mekkhala was located at latitude 17.7\u00b0N and longitude 127.4\u00b0E which put the center about 415 miles (670 km) east-southeast of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 145 m.p.h. (230 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 961 mb.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Mekkhala rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped around the center of Mekkhala’s circulation.\u00a0 A circular eye with a diameter of 25 miles (40 km) formed at the center of Typhoon Mekkhala.\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 were revolving around the center of Mekkhala’s circulation.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Mekkhala generated upper level divergence that pumped mass away from the typhoon.\u00a0 The removal of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease.<\/p>\n
The distribution of winds speeds in Typhoon Mekkhala became more symmetrical on Sunday.\u00a0 Winds to typhoon force extended out 25 miles (40 km) from the center of Mekkhala’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 140 miles (225 km) from the center of Typhoon Mekkhala.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Mekkhala is 20.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 10.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 30.6.\u00a0 Typhoon Mekkhala is similar in intensity to Hurricane Delta when Delta hit Southwest Louisiana in 2020.\u00a0 Mekkhala is a little smaller than Delta was.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Mekkhala will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Mekkhala will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the middle of an upper level ridge that is southwest of Japan.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak in the middle of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Typhoon Mekhala will intensify during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Mekkhala could continue to intensify rapidly during the next few hours.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Mekkhala will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Mekkhala toward the west-northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Typhoon Mekkhala will move closer to northern Luzon. Mekkhala is likely to move more slowly in a couple of days when it reaches the western end of the high pressure system.\u00a0 Typhoon Mekkhala is also likely to move toward the north when it reaches the western end of the high pressure system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Mekkhala rapidly intensified to the equivalent of a major hurricane on Sunday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Typhoon Mekkhala was located at latitude 17.7\u00b0N and longitude 127.4\u00b0E which put the center about 415 miles (670 km) east-southeast of Aparri, Philippines.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 […]<\/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":[453,1817,650,103,2130,64,2129,454],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24567"}],"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=24567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24568,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24567\/revisions\/24568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}