A well defined center of circulation developed rapidly on Monday in an area of thunderstorms over the northern Gulf of Carpentaria and the system was classified as Cyclone Lam.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Monday the center of Lam was located at latitude 11.6\u00b0S and longitude 139.4\u00b0E which put it about 180 miles east-northeast of Nhulunbuy, Australia and about 260 miles northeast of Alyangula.\u00a0 Lam was moving toward the west at 5 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 60 m.p.h. and there were gusts to 80 m.p.h.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 989 mb.<\/p>\n
Lam is an environment that favors intensification.\u00a0 The Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) in the northern Gulf of Carpentaria are near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 There are light east-southeasterly winds in the upper levels, which are creating some vertical wind shear, but there is well-developed upper level outflow on the western side of the circulation.\u00a0 The upper level divergence is pumping out mass and the surface pressure is decreasing.\u00a0 The circulation is tightening up around the core and further intensification is likely.\u00a0 Given the warm SSTs, rapid intensification is possible if the magnitude of the wind shear remains at a modest level.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge to the south of Lam is steering it slowly toward the west.\u00a0 Lam is expected to continue moving westward for another 18 to 24 hours until it reaches the western end of the subtropical ridge.\u00a0 When Lam reaches the western edge of the ridge, it is expected to move toward the southwest.\u00a0 The timing of that turn is very important.\u00a0 If the turn occurs a few hours later than expected, Lam could make landfall in northern Australia near Nhulunbuy.\u00a0 If Lam turns southwestward sooner, it could remain over the Gulf of Carpentaria longer and make landfall closer to Groote Eylandt.\u00a0 Lam has the potential to create dangerous storm surges when it makes landfall.\u00a0 There is also the potential for wind damage, locally heavy rainfall and flooding.<\/p>\n
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A well defined center of circulation developed rapidly on Monday in an area of thunderstorms over the northern Gulf of Carpentaria and the system was classified as Cyclone Lam.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Monday the center of Lam was located at latitude 11.6\u00b0S and longitude 139.4\u00b0E which put it about 180 miles east-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":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415"}],"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=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}