Hurricane Harvey moved closer to Texas on Thursday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Harvey was located at latitude 25.2\u00b0N and longitude 94.6\u00b0W which put it about 250 miles (400 km) southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.\u00a0 Harvey was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 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 973 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Port Mansfield to Sargent, Texas.\u00a0 A Hurricane Watch was in effect from the mouth of the Rio Grande River to Port Mansfield.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from the mouth of the Rio Grande River to Port Mansfield and from Sargent to High Island, Texas.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect from Boca De Catan, Mexico to the mouth of the Rio Grande River.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Harvey intensified rapidly for much of Thursday, but the wind speed stopped increasing Thursday evening.\u00a0 The interruption of the intensification is probably only temporary.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure has continued to decrease slowly, but steadily throughout the evening.\u00a0 An eye with a diameter of 18 miles (29 km) has appeared intermittently.\u00a0 Although there was a continuous ring of strong thunderstorms around the eye earlier this afternoon, there has been a break in that ring this evening.\u00a0 It seems as if there are strong thunderstorms at the leading edge of the primary rainband and downdrafts from those storms may be interfering with the eyewall.\u00a0 The interference with the eyewall may have temporarily paused the intensification of Hurricane Harvey.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Harvey is a small hurricane.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extend out about 25 miles from the center, primarily in the northeastern quadrant of the circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out about 105 miles (170 km) from the center.\u00a0 The current Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Harvey is 12.7.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 6.6 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 19.3.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Harvey will move through a very favorable environment on Friday.\u00a0 Harvey will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 31\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Harvey is likely to strengthen on Friday and it could intensify rapidly again.\u00a0 Harvey is likely to be a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall on the Texas coast and it has a chance to get to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.<\/p>\n
Harvey is being steered toward the northwest by a subtropical ridge located northeast of the hurricane.\u00a0 A general northwesterly motion is expected to continue on Friday.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Harvey would make landfall on the coast of Texas near Corpus Christi in about 36 hours.\u00a0 The steering currents are forecast to weaken about the time Harvey makes landfall and it could meander near the coast of Texas during the weekend.\u00a0 The track forecast becomes very uncertain at that time.<\/p>\n
Based on current projections the forecast Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Harvey at landfall is 25.5.\u00a0 The forecast Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 16.0 and the forecast Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) at landfall is 41.5.\u00a0 Those indices indicate that Harvey could cause regional major damage in Texas.\u00a0 Harvey would be stronger, but smaller, than Hurricane Ike was when Ike made landfall in Texas in 2008.\u00a0 The HII for Ike was 19.2, the HSI was 22.5 and the HWISI was 41.7.<\/p>\n
Harvey will bring strong damaging winds to Texas.\u00a0 Harvey will also cause a dangerous storm surge at the coast.\u00a0 The storm surge could approach 12 feet (4 meters) in some locations.\u00a0 Harvey will also drop very heavy rain, if it stalls after it moves inland.\u00a0 Serious fresh water flooding is possible under that scenario.\u00a0 The strong winds and flooding could also lead to widespread losses of electricity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Harvey moved closer to Texas on Thursday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Hurricane Harvey was located at latitude 25.2\u00b0N and longitude 94.6\u00b0W which put it about 250 miles (400 km) southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.\u00a0 Harvey was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[491,492,384,788,113,24,493,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593"}],"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=4593"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4595,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4593\/revisions\/4595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}