More thunderstorms developed around the center of a tropical low on Sunday and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Alfred.\u00a0 At 7:00 p.m. EST on Sunday the center of Tropical Cyclone Alfred was located at latitude 15.4\u00b0S and longitude 137.2\u00b0E which put it about 75 miles (120 km) northeast of Borroloola, Australia.\u00a0 Alfred was moving toward the south-southeast at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 997 mb.<\/p>\n
An area of low pressure organized over the southeastern Gulf of Carpentaria a few days ago.\u00a0 The Tropical Low moved across the south coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria and then it moved westward over land.\u00a0 The low turned north about 36 hours ago and it crossed into the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria on Sunday.\u00a0 More thunderstorms developed closer to the center of circulation after the circulation moved over water.\u00a0 Downdrafts in those storms transported stronger winds to the surface.\u00a0 Upper level divergence pumped out mass and the surface pressure decreased.\u00a0 When the low pressure system strengthened and acquired the necessary characteristics, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology classified it as Tropical Cyclone Alfred.<\/p>\n
The low level circulation of Tropical Cyclone Alfred is well organized but the distribution of thunderstorms is very asymmetrical.\u00a0 There is a well defined center of circulation that is over the extreme southwestern portion of the Gulf of Carpentaria.\u00a0 However, most of the thunderstorms are developing southwest of the center of circulation.\u00a0 Those thunderstorms are where the strongest winds are occurring.\u00a0 There are few thunderstorms in the other portions of the core of the circulation.\u00a0 There is one band of showers and thunderstorms farther away from the center on the eastern side of the circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Alfred will be moving through an environment that will be marginally favorable intensification.\u00a0 It will be moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 31\u00b0C.\u00a0 So, there is plenty of energy to support intensification.\u00a0 An upper level ridge east of Alfred is producing northerly winds which are blowing over the top of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Those winds are generating moderate wind shear, which is partially responsible for the asymmetrical distribution of thunderstorms.\u00a0 In addition, the center is close to the coast and some of the circulation is passing over land.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Alfred could intensify a little more before it gets to coast, but a weakening trend may be more likely.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge is steering Tropical Cyclone Alfred toward the south-southeast and that general motion is expected to continue for another 12 to 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Alfred could reach the coast near the border between the Northern Territory and Queensland in 12 to 18 hours.\u00a0 Although Tropical Cyclone Alfred will bring some gusty winds, the greater hazard will be locally heavy rainfall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More thunderstorms developed around the center of a tropical low on Sunday and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Alfred.\u00a0 At 7:00 p.m. EST on Sunday the center of Tropical Cyclone Alfred was located at latitude 15.4\u00b0S and longitude 137.2\u00b0E which put it about 75 miles (120 km) northeast of […]<\/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":[313,632,83,82,300,633,631],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674"}],"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=3674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3676,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3674\/revisions\/3676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}