A center of circulation consolidated near a cluster of thunderstorms south of Japan on Saturday and the system was designated as Tropical Storm Chanthu.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Chanthu was located at latitude 21.2\u00b0N and longitude 143.1\u00b0E which put it about 295 miles (475 km) south-southeast of Iwo To.\u00a0 Chanthu was moving toward the northeast at 14 m.p.h. (23 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 998 mb.<\/p>\n
Although a distinct center of circulation exists in the lower levels of Tropical Storm Chanthu, the storm is not well organized.\u00a0 Southwesterly winds in the upper levels are causing vertical wind shear which is tilting the upper portion of the circulation toward the northeast.\u00a0 Most of the thunderstorms associated with Tropical Storm Chanthu are occurring in the northeastern quadrant of the circulation.\u00a0 Several broken rainbands extend into the southern portion of the circulation, but there are few thunderstorms in the western half of Chanthu.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Chanthu is moving through an environment that is marginally favorable for intensification.\u00a0 Chanthu is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 However, an upper level trough west of Chanthu is causing the southwesterly winds which are blowing across the top of the tropical storm.\u00a0 Moderate vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification in the short term.\u00a0 As Tropical Storm Chanthu moves farther north, it could move into a region where the upper level winds are not as strong.\u00a0 If the vertical wind shear decreases, then Chanthu could intensify.<\/p>\n
Winds from the upper level trough are steering Tropical Storm Chanthu toward the northeast.\u00a0 As the tropical storm moves farther north, a subtropical ridge located east of Chanthu will steer it more toward the north.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Tropical Storm Chanthu is expected to pass east of Iwo To in about 24 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Chanthu could be approaching the coast of Japan near Tokyo in about three or four days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A center of circulation consolidated near a cluster of thunderstorms south of Japan on Saturday and the system was designated as Tropical Storm Chanthu.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Storm Chanthu was located at latitude 21.2\u00b0N and longitude 143.1\u00b0E which put it about 295 miles (475 km) south-southeast of Iwo […]<\/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":[459,45,107,44,181,458,460],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2777"}],"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=2777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2778,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2777\/revisions\/2778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}