Tropical Cyclone Blanche formed northwest of Darwin, Australia over the Timor Sea late on Saturday.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Blanche was located at latitude 11.9\u00b0S and longitude 130.3\u00b0E which put it about 55 miles (85 km) northwest of Darwin, Australia.\u00a0 Blanche was moving toward the southwest at 7 m.p.h. (12 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. (65 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 993 mb.<\/p>\n
An area of low pressure moved north of the Northern Territory over the Arafura Sea during the past few days.\u00a0 The low exhibited enough organization for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to designate it as a tropical low.\u00a0 The center of the low moved across Melville Island and Bathhurst Island earlier today.\u00a0 More and stronger thunderstorms began to form closer to the center after it moved over the Beagle Gulf and into the Timor Sea.\u00a0 The increased convection and organization prompted the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to name the system Tropical Cyclone Blanche.<\/p>\n
Although the circulation of Tropical Cyclone Blanche became better organized today, it is still somewhat asymmetrical.\u00a0 Many of the stronger thunderstorms are occurring in a band south and west of the center or circulation.\u00a0 Bands north and east of the center contain mainly lower clouds and showers.\u00a0 An upper level ridge to the east of Blanche is producing northerly winds which are blowing toward the top of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear appears to have increased during recent hours and the upper level divergence to the east of the center has been reduced.\u00a0 Part of the lower level circulation appears to becoming exposed on the most recent visible satellite images.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Blanche will be moving through an environment that contains both positive and negative factors.\u00a0 Blanche will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 So, there is sufficient energy in the upper ocean to support intensification.\u00a0 However, the upper level ridge to the east of Blanche is producing moderate vertical wind shear, which appears to have stalled intensification for now.\u00a0 If the wind shear remains moderate, then Blanche will not strengthen.\u00a0 If the wind shear increases, it could blow the upper portion of the circulation away from the lower part and the tropical cyclone would weaken.\u00a0 On the other hand if the wind shear decreases, then Tropical Cyclone Blanche could intensify a little more.\u00a0 There is a great deal of uncertainty about the future intensity of Blanche.<\/p>\n
Blanche is moving around the northwestern portion of a subtropical ridge, which is steering the tropical cyclone toward the southwest.\u00a0 This general motion is expected to continue.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Blanche will move across the Timor Sea and make landfall on the coast of Western Australia between Wyndham and Kalumburu in 24 to 36 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Blanche could bring some gusty winds, but the primary risk will be locally heavy rainfall and the potential for flooding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Blanche formed northwest of Darwin, Australia over the Timor Sea late on Saturday.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Blanche was located at latitude 11.9\u00b0S and longitude 130.3\u00b0E which put it about 55 miles (85 km) northwest of Darwin, Australia.\u00a0 Blanche was moving toward the southwest at 7 […]<\/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":[639,637,83,638,640,636,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699"}],"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=3699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3700,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3699\/revisions\/3700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}