Tropical Cyclone Vardah intensified into the equivalent of a hurricane on Saturday as it moved across the Bay of Bengal toward India.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Vardah was located at latitude 13.0\u00b0N and longitude 84.8\u00b0E which put it about 290 miles (470 km) east of Chennai, India.\u00a0 Vardah was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h) and there were gusts to 90 m.p.h. (145 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 974 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Cyclone Vardah is well organized, but the distribution of thunderstorms is asymmetrical.\u00a0 There is a broken ring of thunderstorms around the center of circulation.\u00a0 Outside of that ring most of the thunderstorms are forming in the western half of the circulation.\u00a0 It appears that an upper level ridge to the north of Vardah is producing easterly winds which are causing moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The wind shear seems to be the primary cause of the asymmetry of the convection.\u00a0 The thunderstorms are generating upper level divergence which is pumping out mass to the west of the cyclone.<\/p>\n
The environment around Tropical Cyclone Vardah is marginal for further intensification.\u00a0 Vardah is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 However, the moderate vertical wind shear may be strong enough to inhibit further intensification.\u00a0 There are some indications that the upper level winds may be getting stronger and the shear could increase.\u00a0 If the shear increases, then Tropical Cyclone Vardah could start to weaken even though it is over warm water.<\/p>\n
The same ridge that is causing the wind shear is also steering Tropical Cyclone Vardah toward the west and that general motion is expected to continue.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Vardah could make landfall near Chennai, India in about 36 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Vardah will bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to portions of southern India.\u00a0 The heavy rain could cause flooding and mudslides.\u00a0 Vardah will also cause a storm surge along the coast near and to the north of where the center makes landfall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Vardah intensified into the equivalent of a hurricane on Saturday as it moved across the Bay of Bengal toward India.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Vardah was located at latitude 13.0\u00b0N and longitude 84.8\u00b0E which put it about 290 miles (470 km) east of Chennai, India.\u00a0 Vardah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,2],"tags":[588,135,56,264,369,591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478"}],"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=3478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3479,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3478\/revisions\/3479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}