As Hurricane Lester moved steadily closer to Hawaii on Thursday, a Hurricane Watch was issued for Hawaii County and Maui County including Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe.<\/p>\n
At 8:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Lester was located at latitude 18.5\u00b0N and longitude 145.4\u00b0W which put it about 640 miles (1030 km) east of Hilo, Hawaii.\u00a0 Lester was moving toward the west at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 145 m.p.h. (235 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 960 mb.<\/p>\n
The symmetrical circulation of Hurricane Lester is very well organized.\u00a0 There is a circular eye with a diameter of 25 miles (40 km).\u00a0 A ring of strong thunderstorms completely surrounds the eye.\u00a0 Multiple spiral rainbands are rotating around periphery of the circulation.\u00a0 Hurricane Lester is generating strong upper level divergence which is pumping mass out in all directions.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Lester is currently moving through a favorable environment.\u00a0 It is over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 27\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level winds are light and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Lester will be moving over some of the same water that Hurricane Madeline passed over a few days ago.\u00a0 If Madeline stirred any cooler water to the surface, it could cause Hurricane Lester to weaken.\u00a0 When Hurricane Lester gets closer to Hawaii an upper level trough will produce stronger upper level southwesterly winds and the wind shear will increase.\u00a0 Lester should weaken as it gets closer to Hawaii.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge has been steering Hurricane Lester toward the west.\u00a0 The western end of the ridge is expected to weaken and that will cause Lester to move more toward the west-northwest.\u00a0 On its anticipate track Hurricane Lester could approach Hawaii on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Hurricane Lester moved steadily closer to Hawaii on Thursday, a Hurricane Watch was issued for Hawaii County and Maui County including Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe. At 8:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Lester was located at latitude 18.5\u00b0N and longitude 145.4\u00b0W which put it about 640 miles (1030 km) east […]<\/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":[151,486,23,495],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921"}],"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=2921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2922,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2921\/revisions\/2922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}