Tropical Storm Otto intensified into a hurricane on Tuesday as it meandered over the southwestern Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Otto was located at latitude 10.5\u00b0N and longitude 79.6\u00b0W which put it about 235 miles (375 km) east of Limon, Costa Rica.\u00a0 Otto was moving toward the west at 2 m.p.h. (3 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 90 m.p.h. (145 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 984 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Watches have been issued for the portion of the coast from the Costa Rica\/Panama border to Bluefields, Nicaragua.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued for the portion of the coast from Nargana to Colon, Panama and for San Andres Island, Colombia.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Watches have been issued for the portions of the coast from Colon, Panama to the Panama\/Costa Rica border and from Bluefields to Sandy Bay Sirpi, Nicaragua.<\/p>\n
The inner core of Hurricane Otto became more circular and symmetrical on Tuesday.\u00a0 An eyelike feature appeared on microwave satellite imagery and hints of an eye were seen intermittently on visible imagery during the day.\u00a0 There appeared to be breaks in the eyewall on the southeast side of the eye.\u00a0 Most of the stronger thunderstorms are forming northwest of the eye.\u00a0 Convective activity outside the core of Hurricane Otto is more asymmetrical.\u00a0 There are some thinner rainbands north and west of the center where winds from a high pressure system are converging into the circulation of Otto.\u00a0 There are fewer showers and thunderstorms in the southeastern quadrant of the circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms around the center of the hurricane are generating upper level divergence at the very top of the circulation.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Otto has a very small circulation.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force only extend out about 10 miles (15 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force only extend out about 70 miles (110 km) from the center.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Otto is 10.4.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 3.2 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 13.6.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Otto will be moving through an environment that will be favorable for intensification.\u00a0 It will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge located east of Otto is generating southeasterly winds which are blowing against the upper portion of the circulation of the hurricane.\u00a0 Those winds appear to be hitting Otto just under the level of upper level divergence at the top of the circulation.\u00a0 So, the upper level winds and vertical wind shear appear to be restricting upper level divergence to the south of the circulation, but they do not appear to be completely blocking divergence.\u00a0 The speed of the upper level winds is forecast to decrease.\u00a0 If the vertical shear decreases, then Hurricane Otto could strengthen.<\/p>\n
A ridge of high pressure is forecast to build north of Hurricane Otto.\u00a0 That ridge will steer Otto toward the west and the hurricane could start to move faster on Wednesday.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Otto could approach the coast of Costa Rica and Nicaragua on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Otto is a small hurricane, but it could cause localized minor wind damage.\u00a0 Heavy rain, flash floods and mudslides are a much greater threat.\u00a0 Hurricane Otto could bring flooding rains to portions of Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador.<\/p>\n
On a historical note Hurricane Martha formed during this time of year in 1969 in almost exactly the same area where Hurricane Otto formed.\u00a0 Hurricane Martha moved southward and weakened.\u00a0 Martha officially made landfall in Panama as a tropical storm, but it did cause flooding rains and fatalities in parts of Costa Rica.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Otto intensified into a hurricane on Tuesday as it meandered over the southwestern Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Otto was located at latitude 10.5\u00b0N and longitude 79.6\u00b0W which put it about 235 miles (375 km) east of Limon, Costa Rica.\u00a0 Otto was moving toward the west […]<\/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":[576,577,573,579,450,449,580,571,570],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411"}],"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=3411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3412,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3411\/revisions\/3412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}