An area of low pressure system has been moving across northern Australia during the past few days.\u00a0 The low remains organized and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology classified the system as a Tropical Low on Wednesday because of the potential for it to develop into a tropical cyclone.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of the Tropical Low was located at latitude 15.9\u00b0S and longitude 127.0\u00b0E which put it about 80 miles (130 km) west-southwest of Wyndham, Australia.\u00a0 The Tropical Low was moving toward the west at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 30 m.p.h. (50 km\/h) an there were wind gusts to 40 m.p.h. (65 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1002 mb.<\/p>\n
There is a well defined cyclonic circulation in the lower levels of the atmosphere, but there are not many thunderstorms in the core of that circulation.\u00a0 Most of the thunderstorms are developing in bands that are on the periphery of the circulation.\u00a0 The strongest thunderstorms are forming in bands in the western portion of the circulation as that part of the Tropical Low begins to moves over water.\u00a0 The strongest winds are also occurring in these thunderstorms that are over water.\u00a0 The Tropical Low is moving underneath an upper level ridge and the ridge is causing upper level divergence which is pumping out mass.<\/p>\n
The core of the Tropical Low is still over Western Australia and moving over land is the primary factor inhibiting intensification of the system.\u00a0 The atmospheric environment is favorable for intensification.\u00a0 The upper level ridge is producing light winds over the Tropical Low and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The Sea Surface Temperature of the water west of Australia is near 30\u00b0C and there will be plenty of energy in the ocean to support strengthening when the core of the circulation moves west of Australia.\u00a0 Some slow organization of the circulation is possible during the next 12 hours as the core of the Tropical Low moves closer to the coast of Western Australia.\u00a0 Further intensification is likely during the next several days once the core of the Tropical Low moves over the warm water.\u00a0 The Tropical Low could strengthen into the first named tropical cyclone of 2017 later this week.<\/p>\n
The upper level ridge is producing light easterly winds which are slowly steering the Tropical Low toward the west.\u00a0 That general motion is expected to continue for another day or so.\u00a0 Eventually, the Tropical Low is forecast to move on a west-southwesterly track that would paralle, but keep it to the west of the coast of Western Australia during the next several days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An area of low pressure system has been moving across northern Australia during the past few days.\u00a0 The low remains organized and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology classified the system as a Tropical Low on Wednesday because of the potential for it to develop into a tropical cyclone.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,2],"tags":[609,611,78,610,612,329,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586"}],"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=3586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3587,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions\/3587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}