A small cluster of thunderstorms north of Tahiti organized rapidly on Tuesday and it has now been classified as Tropical Cyclone Niko.\u00a0 At 7:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Niko was centered at latitude 14.1\u00b0S and longitude 150.2\u00b0W which put it about 250 miles north-northwest of Papeete, Tahiti and about 220 miles northeast of Bora-Bora.\u00a0 Niko was moving toward the south-southeast at 8 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 50 m.p.h. and there were gusts to 65 m.p.h.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was estimated to be 989 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Niko is small and winds to tropical storm force only extend about 80 miles from the center.\u00a0 The small circulation is in an area of lighter winds in the upper levels.\u00a0 The modest wind shear allowed thunderstorms to develop rapidly around the center of circulation and Niko organized quickly during the past 12 hours.\u00a0 Niko is currently over warm Sea Surface Temperatures and it is in an environment favorable for intensification.\u00a0 Small tropical cyclones can intensify rapidly and Niko has the potential to do so during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 It could reach typhoon intensity on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
A combination of a near equatorial ridge and a subtropical ridge are steering Niko in a south-southeasterly direction and this general motion is expected to continue.\u00a0 The projected path takes the center of Niko east of Tahiti.\u00a0 However, it could move near some smaller islands including Mataiva, Makate, and Tikehau.\u00a0 Given the small size of the circulation, the area of damage is likely to be limited, but any place getting hit directly by the center of circulation could see wind damage.<\/p>\n
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A small cluster of thunderstorms north of Tahiti organized rapidly on Tuesday and it has now been classified as Tropical Cyclone Niko.\u00a0 At 7:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Niko was centered at latitude 14.1\u00b0S and longitude 150.2\u00b0W which put it about 250 miles north-northwest of Papeete, Tahiti and about 220 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,2],"tags":[77],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341"}],"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=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}