A distinct center of circulation consolidated within a cluster of thunderstorms south of Baja California and the National Hurricane Center designated the system as Tropical Storm Kay.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Kay was located at latitude 18.4\u00b0N and longitude 110.9\u00b0W which put it about 315 miles (510 km) south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California.\u00a0 Kay was moving toward the northwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 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 1005 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Storm Kay is only moderately well organized.\u00a0 Most of the stronger thunderstorms are occurring in a band that wraps around the western side of the circulation.\u00a0 There are also scattered thunderstorms in broken bands around the tropical storm, but much of the convection is occurring in the western half of Kay.\u00a0 The thunderstorms in the primary rainband are generating some upper level divergence which is moving air to the west of the Tropical Storm Kay.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Kay is moving through an environment that is marginally favorable for intensification in the short term.\u00a0 Kay is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge to the north of Kay is generating northeasterly winds which are blowing across the top of the tropical storm.\u00a0 The moderate vertical wind shear is inhibiting intensification and it is also contributing to the asymmetrical distribution of thunderstorms.\u00a0 The effect of the warm SSTs could allow for some additional intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Kay will be moving over cooler SSTs during the weekend and the effect of the effect of the cooler water with less energy will weaken the storm.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Kay is moving around the western end of a subtropical ridge and that is steering the storm toward the northwest.\u00a0 That general motion is expected to continue for another 24 to 48 hours.\u00a0 When Tropical Storm Kay moves over cooler SSTs, the thunderstorms will weaken and the circulation will become shallower.\u00a0 The shallower circulation will be steered by the winds closer to the surface, which are expected to turn Tropical Storm Kay more toward the west in a couple of days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Storm Kay will pass west of Baja California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A distinct center of circulation consolidated within a cluster of thunderstorms south of Baja California and the National Hurricane Center designated the system as Tropical Storm Kay.\u00a0 At 5:00 a.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Kay was located at latitude 18.4\u00b0N and longitude 110.9\u00b0W which put it about 315 miles (510 km) […]<\/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":[150,109,39,108,470,23,24,469],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814"}],"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=2814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2815,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2814\/revisions\/2815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}