Tropical Storm Darby moved closer to Hawaii on Friday and the Tropical Storm Watches were upgraded to Tropical Storm Warnings.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Darby was located at latitude 18.7\u00b0N and longitude 152.1\u00b0W which put it about 205 miles (335 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Darby was moving toward the west at 12 m.p.h. (19 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 1000 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for Hawaii County and Maui County including Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe,\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for Maui.<\/p>\n
An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance aircraft investigated Tropical Storm Darby on Friday and provided data from inside the tropical storm.\u00a0 Darby has an asymmetrical structure.\u00a0 A primary rainband wraps around the western side of the tropical storm and most of the thunderstorms are west of the center of circulation.\u00a0 An upper level ridge west of Hawaii is generating northeasterly winds which are blowing over the top of Tropical Storm Darby.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear caused by the upper level ridge is contributing to the asymmetrical structure of the circulation.\u00a0 The thunderstorms in the primary rainband are generating some upper level divergence.\u00a0 Most of the stronger winds are occurring in the northern half of the circulation.<\/p>\n
Darby is moving through an environment that is marginal for intensification.\u00a0 It is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is near 27.5\u00b0C.\u00a0 However, the vertical wind shear is inhibiting the upper level divergence to the northeast.\u00a0 The effects of warm SSTs and moderate upper level divergence appear to be offsetting each other and the intensity of Tropical Storm Darby did not change much on Friday.\u00a0 As Darby moves farther west, the SSTs will start to decrease and the vertical wind shear will increase.\u00a0 The more hostile environment is expected to cause Darby to weaken during the next few days.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge north of Darby is steering the tropical storm toward the west.\u00a0 Darby is moving near the western end of the ridge and it is expected to turn more toward the northwest during the weekend.\u00a0 On its expected track Tropical Storm Darby is forecast to move near the Big Island of Hawaii on Saturday.\u00a0 If Darby makes the expected turn toward the northwest, it could affect much of Hawaii.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Darby will bring strong winds and higher than normal surf to Hawaii.\u00a0 However, the greatest risk will be caused by winds flowing up slopes, which will produce locally heavy rain and the chance for flash floods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Darby moved closer to Hawaii on Friday and the Tropical Storm Watches were upgraded to Tropical Storm Warnings.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Darby was located at latitude 18.7\u00b0N and longitude 152.1\u00b0W which put it about 205 miles (335 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Darby was moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[418,419,23,417],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651"}],"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=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2652,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions\/2652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}