Powerful Tropical Cyclone Gita posed an increasing threat to Tonga on Sunday night.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST the center of Tropical Cyclone Gita was located at latitude 21.7\u00b0S and longitude 173.2\u00b0W which put it about 120 miles (195 km) east of Nuku’Alofa, Tonga.\u00a0 Gita was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 125 m.p.h. (200 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 155 m.p.h. (205 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 944 mb.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gita was the equivalent of a major hurricane.<\/p>\n
The circulation of Tropical Cyclone Gita is very well organized.\u00a0 There is a circular eye at the center of circulation.\u00a0 A ring of strong thunderstorms surrounds the eye and the strongest winds are occurring in that eye.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms are revolving around the core of Tropical Cyclone Gita.\u00a0 Storms in the core are generating strong upper level divergence which is pumping mass away in all directions.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extend out about 50 miles (80 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out about 165 miles (270 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Gita is 23.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 16.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 39.6.\u00a0 Those indices indicate that Gita will be capable of causing major damage when it moves over Tonga on Monday.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gita will be moving through an environment favorable for strong tropical cyclones during the next 24 to 48 hours.\u00a0 Gita will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The favorable environment could allow Tropical Cyclone Gita to intensify more before it reaches Tonga.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gita is moving north of a subtropical ridge which is steering the tropical cyclone toward the west.\u00a0 A general motion toward the west is expected to continue for another two or three days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Gita could reach Tonga within 12 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gita will be capable of causing major wind damage when it reaches Tonga.\u00a0 Gita will also drop heavy rain and flooding is possible.\u00a0 Winds blowing the wind toward the coast could also produce significant storm surges in some locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Powerful Tropical Cyclone Gita posed an increasing threat to Tonga on Sunday night.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST the center of Tropical Cyclone Gita was located at latitude 21.7\u00b0S and longitude 173.2\u00b0W which put it about 120 miles (195 km) east of Nuku’Alofa, Tonga.\u00a0 Gita was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (21 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":[76,2],"tags":[956,89,650,88,92,306,301,334,307,955,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533"}],"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=5533"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5534,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5533\/revisions\/5534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}