A tropical depression formed near the southern tip of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 7:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Depression 96S was located at latitude 6.2\u00b0N and longitude 80.0\u00b0E which put it about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Galle, Sri Lanka.\u00a0 It was moving toward the west-southwest at 4 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 35 m.p.h. (55 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1004 mb.<\/p>\n
A center of circulation formed within a cluster of thunderstorms also designated as Invest 91B and the Indian Meteorological Department classified the system as a Depression.\u00a0 The circulation in the tropical depression was still organizing.\u00a0 A large, primary rainband wrapped around the southern and western sides of the center of circulation.\u00a0 Additional bands of showers and strong thunderstorms were forming in the western half of the circulation.\u00a0 Bands of showers and isolated thunderstorms were developing in the eastern half of the circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in the primary rainband were generating upper level divergence which was pumping away mass to the west of the depression.<\/p>\n
The depression will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next several days.\u00a0 It will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level ridge over India is generating easterly winds which are blowing toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds are causing moderate vertical wind shear which is probably the reason why most of the stronger thunderstorms are occurring in the western half of the depression.\u00a0 The vertical wind shear will inhibit intensification, but it is not likely to prevent strengthening.\u00a0 The depression is likely to intensify into a stronger tropical cyclone during the next several days.<\/p>\n
The ridge over India is steering the tropical depression toward the west-southwest.\u00a0 The ridge is forecast to steer the depression in a generally westerly direction during the next several days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the depression will move away from Sri Lanka and the center will pass south of India.\u00a0 The depression could cause locally heavy rain and flash floods in parts of Sri Lanka and southern India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tropical depression formed near the southern tip of Sri Lanka on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 7:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Depression 96S was located at latitude 6.2\u00b0N and longitude 80.0\u00b0E which put it about 20 miles (30 km) northwest of Galle, Sri Lanka.\u00a0 It was moving toward the west-southwest at 4 m.p.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":[48,2],"tags":[900,57,135,56,899,901,369],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216"}],"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=5216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5217,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions\/5217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}