The center of Tropical Storm Mekkhala passed west of Okinawa on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Mekkhala was located at latitude 27.9\u00b0N and longitude 127.5\u00b0E which put the center about 80 miles (130 km) northwest of Okinawa.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the north-northeast at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. (65 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 983 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Mekkhala continued to weaken as it passed west of Okinawa on Thursday.\u00a0 Mekkhala moved under the southern part of an upper level trough that was over South Korea,\u00a0 The upper level trough produced westerly winds that blew toward the top of Mekkhala’s circulation.\u00a0 Those winds caused strong vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The strong vertical wind shear blew the tops off of most of the thunderstorms in Tropical Storm Mekkhala.\u00a0 Bands revolving around the center of Mekkhala’s circulation consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.<\/p>\n
The distribution of wind speeds in Tropical Storm Mekkhala became more asymmetrical on Thursday.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 140 miles (225 km) in the eastern side of Mekkhala’s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 90 miles (145 km) in the western side of Tropical Storm Mekkhala.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Mekkhala will move through an environment that will be unfavorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Mekkhala will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 26\u00b0C.\u00a0 However, the upper level trough over South Korea will continue to cause strong vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Mekkhala could weaken to a tropical depression during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Mekkhala will move around the northwestern part of a high pressure system over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Mekkhala toward the east-northeast during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Tropical Storm Mekkhala will be near Tokyo in 36 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Mekkhala could bring gusty winds to the southern coast of Honshu including Tokyo during the next 48 hours.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the Western North Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Higos strengthened south of Japan.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Higos was located at latitude 26.3\u00b0N and longitude 133.9\u00b0E which put the center about 155 miles (250 km) east-southeast of Minamidaitojima, Japan.\u00a0 Higos was moving toward the north at 30 m.p.h. (48 km\/h). 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 986 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The center of Tropical Storm Mekkhala passed west of Okinawa on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Mekkhala was located at latitude 27.9\u00b0N and longitude 127.5\u00b0E which put the center about 80 miles (130 km) northwest of Okinawa.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the north-northeast at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 […]<\/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":[453,739,2146,461,44,2130,3250,46,474,2145,4168,454,740],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597"}],"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=24597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24598,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions\/24598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}