Tropical Cyclone Donna strengthened on Thursday as it moved north of Vanuatu.\u00a0 The center of Donna passed near the Banks Islands and the Torres Islands and it is currently located northwest of Espiritu Santo.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Donna was located at latitude 13.2\u00b0S and longitude 166.0\u00b0E which put it about 350 miles (560 km) north-northwest of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Donna was moving toward the west-southwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 967 mb.<\/p>\n
A partial eyewall continued to wrap around the center of circulation, but a well defined eye did not form.\u00a0 A band of thunderstorms extended about two thirds of the way around the center.\u00a0 Other bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms near the core of the circulation generated upper level divergence that pumped out mass to the southeast of Tropical Cyclone Donna.<\/p>\n
Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extend out about 40 miles (65 km) from the center of circulation and winds to tropical storm force extend out about 140 miles (225 km) from the center.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) is 16.5.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 13.4 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 29.9.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Donna will move through an area that will be somewhat favorable for intensification.\u00a0 Donna will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge east of Donna is producing northerly winds which are blowing toward the top of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The upper level winds are generating moderate vertical wind shear and the shear seems to have slowed the intensification of Donna.\u00a0 The strength of the upper level winds could decrease and intensification could resume on Friday.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Donna could intensify into the equivalent of a major hurricane during the next 24 to 48 hours.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge to the south of Donna is steering the tropical cyclone toward the west-southwest and that general motion is expected to continue for about another 24 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Donna will reach the western end of the ridge in about a day or so and it will turn toward the south.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Donna will pass west of Espiritu Santo.\u00a0 Guidance from the numerical models suggests the center of Donna could pass between Vanuatu and New Caledonia, but different models are predicting different tracks and so there is more uncertainty in the track at that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Donna strengthened on Thursday as it moved north of Vanuatu.\u00a0 The center of Donna passed near the Banks Islands and the Torres Islands and it is currently located northwest of Espiritu Santo.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Donna was located at latitude 13.2\u00b0S and longitude 166.0\u00b0E which […]<\/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":[347,650,88,92,348,676,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928"}],"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=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3929,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions\/3929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}