Tropical Cyclone Marcus strengthened into the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it churned northwest of Australia on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Marcus was located at latitude 15.8\u00b0S and longitude 108.0\u00b0E which put it about 600 miles (960 km) northwest of Learmonth, Australia.\u00a0 Marcus was moving toward the west-southwest at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 160 m.p.h. (260 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 195 m.p.h. (315 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 918 mb.<\/p>\n
After completing an eyewall replacement cyclone on Tuesday, Tropical Cyclone Marcus began to intensify quickly again on Wednesday.\u00a0 Marcus exhibited a circular, symmetrical circulation.\u00a0 There was a tiny circular eye at the center of circulation.\u00a0 The strongest winds were occurring in a ring of thunderstorms that surrounded the small inner eye.\u00a0 Recent satellite images suggested that another eyewall replacement cycle may be beginning.\u00a0 A larger, outer eyewall appeared to have encircled the small inner eye.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the concentric eyewalls.\u00a0 Storms in the core of Marcus were generating very well developed upper level divergence which was pumping mass away in all directions from the tropical cyclone.<\/p>\n
As frequently happens during eyewall replacement cycles, Tropical Cyclone Marcus increased in size after Tuesday’s eyewall replacement cycle was completed.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out about 50 miles (85 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 180 miles (290 km) from the center.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Marcus was 35.0.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 18.7 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 53.7.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Marcus is in an environment that is very favorable for strong tropical cyclones.\u00a0 Marcus is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It is moving through an area where the upper level winds are weak and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Although Tropical Cyclone Marcus is in a very favorable environment, another eyewall replacement cycle would cause it to weaken.\u00a0 The wind would begin to converge into the outer eyewall, which would cause the storms in the inner eyewall to weaken.\u00a0 The wind speeds would decrease as the inner eyewall weakens.\u00a0 Then the strongest winds would be found in the outer eyewall and the circulation would increase in size.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Marcus is nearing the western end of a subtropical ridge over Australia.\u00a0 The ridge is steering Marcus toward the west-southwest, but the tropical cyclone will turn more toward the south when it reaches the end of the ridge.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Marcus will make a gradual turn toward the southeast during the next several days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Marcus will remain west of Western Australia during the next 36 to 48 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Marcus strengthened into the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it churned northwest of Australia on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Marcus was located at latitude 15.8\u00b0S and longitude 108.0\u00b0E which put it about 600 miles (960 km) northwest of Learmonth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,48,2],"tags":[652,78,650,980,653,612,977,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682"}],"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=5682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5683,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5682\/revisions\/5683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}