Hurricane Maria pulled away slowly from the Turks and Caicos on Friday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Maria was located at latitude 23.3\u00b0N and longitude 71.4\u00b0W which put it about 395 miles (635 km) east-southeast of Nassau, Bahamas.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the north-northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 125 m.p.h. (205 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 150 m.p.h. (240 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 959 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for the Turks and Caicos, Southeastern Bahamas and Central Bahamas.<\/p>\n
The structure of Hurricane Maria did not change much on Friday.\u00a0 An eye continued to mark the center of circulation.\u00a0 A nearly complete ring of thunderstorms surrounded the eye.\u00a0 The strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms revolved around the core of Hurricane Maria.\u00a0 There were more showers and thunderstorms in the northern half of the circulation.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out about 60 miles (95 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 160 miles (260 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Maria will move through an environment that is somewhat favorable for hurricanes.\u00a0 Maria will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level trough over the southeastern U.S. is producing southwesterly winds which are blowing toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds are not producing strong vertical wind shear, but they could impede upper level divergence to the west of Hurricane Maria.\u00a0 Hurricane Maria could maintain its intensity for another day or two unless the vertical shear increases. If the shear increases, then Maria will start to weaken.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Maria has reached the western end of the subtropical high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high is steering Maria toward the north-northwest.\u00a0 A general north-northwesterly motion is expected to continue for several more days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the core of Hurricane Maria will pass east of the Bahamas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Maria pulled away slowly from the Turks and Caicos on Friday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Maria was located at latitude 23.3\u00b0N and longitude 71.4\u00b0W which put it about 395 miles (635 km) east-southeast of Nassau, Bahamas.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the north-northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The […]<\/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":[551,552,31,51,830,100,99,97],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879"}],"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=4879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4880,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4879\/revisions\/4880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}