Tropical Cyclone Donna moved toward Vanuatu and strengthened into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 8:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Donna was located at latitude 12.4\u00b0S and longitude 168.2\u00b0E which put it about 270 miles (435 km) north-northeast of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Donna was moving toward the west at 11 m.p.h. (17 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 85 m.p.h. (135 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 976 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Cyclone Donna organized further on Wednesday.\u00a0 An eyelike feature appeared on some microwave satellite images.\u00a0 An eyewall wrapped about two thirds of the way around the western side of the center of circulation.\u00a0 A primary rainband curled around the southern and western portions of the core of Tropical Cyclone Donna.\u00a0 Additional bands of showers and thunderstorms formed and revolved around the core of Donna.\u00a0 Thunderstorms around the core generated strong upper level divergence which pumped out mass and allowed the pressure to decrease quickly.\u00a0 A stronger pressure gradient force accelerated the air and resulted in faster wind speeds.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Donna will continue to move through a favorable environment during the next several days.\u00a0 Donna will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It is currently in an area where the upper level winds are weak and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The combination of warm water and little shear will produce further strengthening and Tropical Cyclone Donna could continue to intensify rapidly.\u00a0 Donna could intensify into the equivalent of a major hurricane within 24 to 48 hours.<\/p>\n
Donna is moving around the northern side of a subtropical ridge which is steering the tropical cyclone toward the west.\u00a0 A general westerly motion is expected to continue for another 24 hours.\u00a0 After that time Tropical Cyclone Donna will approach the western end of the ridge and it will turn more toward the south.\u00a0 Guidance from numerical models differs on the timing and location of the turn toward the south.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Donna could approach some of the islands of northern Vanuatu in about 24 hours.\u00a0 It could be a significant tropical cyclone at that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Donna moved toward Vanuatu and strengthened into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 8:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Donna was located at latitude 12.4\u00b0S and longitude 168.2\u00b0E which put it about 270 miles (435 km) north-northeast of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Donna 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":[76,2],"tags":[347,88,92,348,676,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923"}],"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=3923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3924,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions\/3924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}