Major Hurricane Harvey was closing on the Texas coast on Friday afternoon.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Harvey was located at latitude 27.4\u00b0N and longitude 96.4\u00b0W which put it about 70 miles (110 km) east-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 120 m.p.h. (195 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 140 m.p.h. (225 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 943 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Port Mansfield to Sargent, Texas.\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 has a relatively compact circulation.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extend out about 35 miles (55 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out about 140 miles (225 km) from the center.\u00a0 The current Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Harvey is 22.1.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 10.4 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 32.5.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Harvey went through an eyewall replacement cycle earlier today.\u00a0 A second outer eyewall encircled the original inner eyewall.\u00a0 The two concentric eyewalls temporarily interrupted the intensification of Harvey.\u00a0 Most of the air began converging in the outer eyewall and the inner eyewall dissipated.\u00a0 The eyewall replacement cycle resulted in Harvey becoming a slightly larger hurricane.\u00a0 After the inner eyewall dissipated, the remaining outer eyewall began to contract and Harvey started to intensify again.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Harvey will still be over the warm water of the western Gulf of Mexico for a few more hours.\u00a0 So, it does have a chance to intensify further.\u00a0 There is about a 25% chance that Harvey intensifies to Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale before it makes landfall.<\/p>\n
Harvey is being steered toward the northwest by a subtropical ridge located northeast of the hurricane.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Harvey will most likely make landfall on the coast of Texas between Corpus Christi and Freeport in a few 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.\u00a0 Some models forecast that Harvey will stall inland, while other models predict it will drift back over the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n
Based on current projections the forecast Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Harvey at landfall is 26.7.\u00a0 The forecast Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 11.6 and the forecast Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) at landfall is 38.3.\u00a0 Those indices indicate that Harvey could cause regional major damage in Texas.\u00a0 Harvey will 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.\u00a0 Hurricane Harvey is going to be more similar to Hurricane Charley when Charley made landfall in southwest Florida in 2004.\u00a0 The HII for Charley was 29.9, the HSI was 8.1 and the HWISI was 38.0<\/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":"
Major Hurricane Harvey was closing on the Texas coast on Friday afternoon.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Harvey was located at latitude 27.4\u00b0N and longitude 96.4\u00b0W which put it about 70 miles (110 km) east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas.\u00a0 Harvey was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 […]<\/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":[491,492,384,788,650,113,24,493,112],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603"}],"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=4603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4604,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4603\/revisions\/4604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}