The National Hurricane Center upgraded Invest 96L to Tropical Depression 16 on Monday morning.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Monday the center of Tropical Depression 16 was located at latitude 11.5\u00b0N and longitude 79.3\u00b0W which put it about 305 miles (495 km) east of Bluefields, Nicaragua.\u00a0 Tropical Depression 16 was stationary.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 35 m.p.h. (55 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 45 m.p.h. (75 km).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1002 mb.<\/p>\n
An Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft investigated the area of low pressure over the southwestern Caribbean Sea on Sunday afternoon and it found a distinct surface center with a lower pressure.\u00a0 When more thunderstorms formed near the center of circulation early on Monday, the National Hurricane Center designated the system as Tropical Depression 16.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Depression 16 is fairly well organized.\u00a0 It has a tight core and several bands of thunderstorms.\u00a0 Most of the bands are occurring north and west of the center of circulation.\u00a0 There are fewer thunderstorms in the southeastern quadrant of the circulation.\u00a0 The thunderstorms north of the center are generating upper level upper level divergence.\u00a0 Southerly winds appear to be inhibiting upper level divergence to the south of the tropical depression.<\/p>\n
Tropical Depression 16 is in an environment that is slightly favorable for intensification.\u00a0 It is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 However, the depression and its precursor have been over the same area for almost a week.\u00a0 So, the winds in Tropical Depression 16 are gradually mixing cooler water to the surface.\u00a0 An upper level ridge to the east and an upper level trough to the west are generating southerly winds which are blowing across the top of the depression.\u00a0 The southerly winds are generating moderate vertical wind shear and they are inhibiting upper level divergence to the south.\u00a0 The mixed environmental factors will limit intensification in the short term.\u00a0 The upper level winds are forecast to weaken in a day or two and more intensification could occur when that happens.\u00a0 Tropical Depression 16 is likely to intensify into a tropical storm and it could become a hurricane later this week.<\/p>\n
The steering currents are weak around Tropical Depression 16 and it may move little during the next 24 to 36 hours.\u00a0 A ridge of high pressure is forecast to build north of the depression and the ridge is forecast to steer it slowly toward the west later this week.\u00a0 Tropical Depression 16 could approach the coast of Nicaragua in about three days.\u00a0 It could be a hurricane at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Hurricane Center upgraded Invest 96L to Tropical Depression 16 on Monday morning.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Monday the center of Tropical Depression 16 was located at latitude 11.5\u00b0N and longitude 79.3\u00b0W which put it about 305 miles (495 km) east of Bluefields, Nicaragua.\u00a0 Tropical Depression 16 was stationary.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[576,577,573,449,571,570,575],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399"}],"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=3399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3400,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3399\/revisions\/3400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}