Tropical Depression 04W formed east of the Northern Marianas very late on Friday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Depression 04W was located at latitude 18.8\u00b0N and longitude 148.5\u00b0E which put it about 185 miles (300 km) east of Agrihan.\u00a0 It was moving toward the northwest at 11 m.p.h. (17 km\/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 1003 mb.<\/p>\n
An area of showers and thunderstorms persisted for much of the past week east of the Northern Marianas.\u00a0 Several smaller centers of circulation formed within the area of showers and storms, but those centers ran into strong upper level winds and weakened because strong vertical wind shear and they dissipated.\u00a0 Another center formed on Friday, but the upper level winds were a little weaker and the center persisted.\u00a0 An upper level trough south of Japan was still producing southwesterly winds which were blowing toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds were producing moderate vertical wind shear, but the center of circulation persisted.\u00a0 Most of the thunderstorms were occurring in bands east of the center of circulation.\u00a0 The bands west of the center consisted primarily of low clouds and showers.<\/p>\n
Tropical Depression will move through an area marginally favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 it will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 So, there will be enough energy in the upper ocean to support some intensification.\u00a0 The upper level trough south of Japan will continue to cause moderate vertical wind shear, but the upper level winds could be weak enough to allow for further intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Depression 04W could strengthen into a tropical storm on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Tropical Depression 04W is moving near the southwestern part of a ridge over the North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The ridge is steering the depression toward the northwest and that general motion is expected to continue for another day or two.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Depression 04W is expected to pass near the northernmost Mariana Islands.\u00a0 It could pass near Asuncion Island, the Maug Islands, Supply Reef and Farallon de Pajaros.\u00a0 Tropical Depression 04W could bring gust winds, locally heavy rain and higher waves to those places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Depression 04W formed east of the Northern Marianas very late on Friday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Depression 04W was located at latitude 18.8\u00b0N and longitude 148.5\u00b0E which put it about 185 miles (300 km) east of Agrihan.\u00a0 It was moving toward the northwest at 11 m.p.h. (17 km\/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":[2,5],"tags":[697,107,44,181,696,698],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835"}],"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=5835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5836,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions\/5836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}