Tropical Storm Mekkhala intensified rapidly on Friday and it has reached typhoon intensity.\u00a0 At 3:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Mekkhala was located at latitude 10.9\u00b0N and longitude 127.5\u00b0E which put it about 280 miles east of Tacloban and about 500 miles east-southeast of Manila, Philippines.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the west-southwest at 11 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 75 m.p.h. and there were wind gusts to 90 m.p.h.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 974 mb.<\/p>\n
The speed of the upper level east-southeasterly winds blowing over the top of Mekkhala weakened on Friday and the vertical shear affecting the circulation decreased.\u00a0 The combination of less vertical wind shear and warm Sea Surface Temperatures allowed convection to develop all around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Strong thunderstorms near the center of Mekkhala created upper level divergence and the storm intensified rapidly into a typhoon.\u00a0 Mekkhala remains in a favorable environment and further intensification is possible before it reaches the Philippines.\u00a0 Once the center of circulation beings to move over the islands, interaction with land will weaken it.<\/p>\n
A strengthening subtropical ridge has been steering Mekkhala a little south of due west and that motion is expected to continue in the short term.\u00a0 The typhoon could reach the Philippines in about 12 hours.\u00a0 Mekkhala could turn more toward the west-northwest as it crosses the Philippines and reaches the western end of the subtropical ridge.<\/p>\n
Since Mekkhala has intensified into a typhoon the potential risks now include wind damage, and storm surge in addition to locally heavy rainfall, flooding and mudslides.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Mekkhala intensified rapidly on Friday and it has reached typhoon intensity.\u00a0 At 3:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Mekkhala was located at latitude 10.9\u00b0N and longitude 127.5\u00b0E which put it about 280 miles east of Tacloban and about 500 miles east-southeast of Manila, Philippines.\u00a0 Mekkhala was moving toward the west-southwest at […]<\/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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327"}],"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=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}