Former Tropical Storm Fernanda rapidly intensified into a hurricane on Thursday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Fernanda was located at latitude 11.2\u00b0N and longitude 116.0\u00b0W which put it about 900 miles (1450 km) south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California.\u00a0 Fernanda was moving toward the west at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 95 m.p.h. (155 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 990 mb.<\/p>\n
A primary rainband wrapped around the center of circulation and an eye appeared intermittently on visible satellite images on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0 The improved organization of the inner core of Fernanda allowed it to intensify rapidly into a hurricane.\u00a0 The distribution of thunderstorms become more symmetrical and circulation exhibited a more circular appearance.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the inner core began to generate strong upper level divergence which pumped out mass in all directions.\u00a0 The divergence of mass allowed the surface pressure to decrease and the wind speeds to increase rapidly.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Fernanda will move through an environment that will be favorable for further intensification during the next two days.\u00a0 Fernanda will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge northeast of Fernanda is producing easterly winds which are blowing toward the top of the hurricane.\u00a0 However, the speed of the upper level winds decreased on Thursday and there is less vertical wind shear.\u00a0 A combination of a well organized inner core, warm SSTs and reduced vertical wind shear resulted in rapid intensification of Fernanda into a hurricane.\u00a0 Rapid intensification could continue for another 24 to 36 hours and Fernanda is forecast to become a major hurricane on Friday.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge to the north of Fernanda is steering the hurricane toward the west and a general westerly motion is expected to continue for several more days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Fernanda will move farther away from Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Tropical Storm Fernanda rapidly intensified into a hurricane on Thursday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Fernanda was located at latitude 11.2\u00b0N and longitude 116.0\u00b0W which put it about 900 miles (1450 km) south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California.\u00a0 Fernanda was moving toward the west at 12 m.p.h. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[422,39,423,23,728,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236"}],"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=4236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4237,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236\/revisions\/4237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}