A low level circulation developed enough organization on the eastern side of a cluster of thunderstorms over the Mozambique Channel to be classified as a tropical cyclone on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone 15S was located at latitude 16.6\u00b0S and longitude 42.3\u00b0 which put it about 110 miles east-southeast of Mogincual, Mozambique and about 200 miles northwest of Maintirano, Madagascar.\u00a0 It was moving toward the south-southeast at 5 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. and there were wind gusts to 50 m.p.h.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 996 mb.<\/p>\n
Southeasterly winds in the upper levels are creating vertical wind shear and most of the stronger thunderstorms are on the western side of the center of circulation.\u00a0 However, the tropical cyclone is over warm Sea Surface Temperatures and some intensification is possible.\u00a0 If the upper level winds decrease, the more rapid intensification could occur.\u00a0 A gradual intensification seems more likely over the short term.<\/p>\n
A subtropical ridge of high pressure to the east of the tropical cyclone is steering it slowly to the south.\u00a0 It is likely to move into a region of weak steering winds\u00a0 between that ridge of high pressure and another ridge farther to the west.\u00a0 As a result, the tropical cyclone could move slowly and erratically and even become stationary at times during the next day or two.\u00a0 Eventually, a third ridge of high pressure is expected to develop to the north of the system and push it westward toward Madagascar.<\/p>\n
The tropical cyclone could be a strong tropical storm or near hurricane intensity when it reaches Madagascar.\u00a0 Some wind damage is possible, but the biggest threat appears to be from locally heavy rainfall and flooding.<\/p>\n
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A low level circulation developed enough organization on the eastern side of a cluster of thunderstorms over the Mozambique Channel to be classified as a tropical cyclone on Thursday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone 15S was located at latitude 16.6\u00b0S and longitude 42.3\u00b0 which put it about 110 miles […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,2],"tags":[85,86],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482"}],"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=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions\/483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}