Tropical Depression 01W intensified into Tropical Storm Mekkhala on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Mekkhala was located at latitude 11.5\u00b0N and longitude 133.8\u00b0E which put it about 370 miles north-northwest of Palau and about 820 miles east of Manila, Philippines.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the west at 16 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. and there were gusts to 60 m.p.h.\u00a0\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1000 mb.<\/p>\n
Although there are still moderate wind speeds in the upper levels, the wind shear decreased slightly.\u00a0 That allowed more thunderstorms to develop closer to the center of circulation and the system became more organized.\u00a0 A subtropical ridge northeast of Mekkhala will continue to produce southeasterly winds over the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Moderate wind shear will limit intensification.\u00a0 However, Mekkhala will be moving over Warm Sea Surface Temperatures and so some intensification is possible during the next several days.<\/p>\n
The subtropical ridge is expected to strengthen and steer Mekkhala westward toward the Philippines.\u00a0 The tropical storm could be approaching the central and northern Philippines in 48 to 72 hours.\u00a0 The main threats appear to be locally heavy rainfall, flooding and mudslides.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Depression 01W intensified into Tropical Storm Mekkhala on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Storm Mekkhala was located at latitude 11.5\u00b0N and longitude 133.8\u00b0E which put it about 370 miles north-northwest of Palau and about 820 miles east of Manila, Philippines.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the west at 16 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312"}],"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=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}