Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane southwest of the Azores on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Ophelia was located at latitude 30.0\u00b0N and longitude 35.7\u00b0W which put it about 745 miles (1195 km) southwest of the Azores.\u00a0 Ophelia was moving toward the northeast at 3 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 85 m.p.h. (140 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 986 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Hurricane Ophelia became more circular and symmetrical on Wednesday.\u00a0 A circular eye developed at the center of circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the ring around the eye became taller.\u00a0 Additional bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Hurricane Ophelia.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the core were producing upper level divergence which was pumping mass away to the east of the hurricane.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out about 25 miles (40 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 70 miles (110 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Ophelia will be moving through an environment that could support further intensification on Thursday.\u00a0 Ophelia will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 26.5\u00b0C.\u00a0 Ophelia is in an area of weaker upper level winds.\u00a0 It is north of the subtropical jet stream and it is south of the stronger westerly winds in the middle latitudes.\u00a0 As a result the vertical wind shear is minimal.\u00a0 The combination of warm water and little shear allowed Ophelia to intensify into a hurricane and it could strengthen further on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Ophelia is in an area of weak westerly winds which are steering the hurricane slowly toward the east.\u00a0 An upper level trough will approach Ophelia from the west and the trough will start to pull the hurricane toward the northeast more quickly later this week.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Ophelia could approach the Azores in two or three days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane southwest of the Azores on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Hurricane Ophelia was located at latitude 30.0\u00b0N and longitude 35.7\u00b0W which put it about 745 miles (1195 km) southwest of the Azores.\u00a0 Ophelia was moving toward the northeast at 3 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum […]<\/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":[840,841,842,845,843,844,322,274],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984"}],"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=4984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4985,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4984\/revisions\/4985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}