After making a long slow clockwise loop, Tropical Cyclone Nathan is expected to intensify and move toward Northern Queensland.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Nathan was located at latitude 15.2\u00b0S and longitude 149.2\u00b0E which put it about 270 miles east of Cooktown, about 260 miles east-northeast of Cairns and about 330 miles northeast of Townsville, Australia.\u00a0 Nathan was moving toward the west-southwest at 3 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 60 m.p.h. and there were wind gusts to 80 m.p.h.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 983 mb.<\/p>\n
Wind shear had been inhibiting the re-organization of the circulation around Tropical Cyclone Nathan.\u00a0 However, it has moved into a much more favorable environment and the circulation has consolidated.\u00a0 Satellite imagery indicates that Nathan now looks like a classical tropical cyclone with an area of thunderstorms at its center and spiral bands rotating around the core.\u00a0 Nathan is over warm Sea Surface Temperatures and in an area where the upper level winds are light.\u00a0 So, further intensification is likely and rapid intensification is possible.<\/p>\n
The steering currents around Nathan have been weak.\u00a0 However, a subtropical ridge is expected to build southwest of the tropical cyclone and steer it westward toward northern Queensland.\u00a0 The projected track would bring the center of Nathan to the coast near Cooktown in about 36 to 48 hours.\u00a0\u00a0 Nathan is expected to intensify during that time and it could be a strong tropical cyclone when it makes landfall.\u00a0 It has the potential to bring strong winds and a significant storm surge when it reaches the coast.\u00a0 It could also bring locally heavy rain and possibly flooding as the circulation moves inland over northeastern Queensland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After making a long slow clockwise loop, Tropical Cyclone Nathan is expected to intensify and move toward Northern Queensland.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Nathan was located at latitude 15.2\u00b0S and longitude 149.2\u00b0E which put it about 270 miles east of Cooktown, about 260 miles east-northeast of Cairns and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568"}],"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=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":569,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}