Typhoon Maria rapidly intensified Thursday into the equivalent of a major hurricane as it moved west of the Mariana Islands.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Typhoon Maria was located at latitude 15.7\u00b0N and longitude 142.1\u00b0E which put it about 210 miles (340 km) northwest of Guam.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 125 m.p.h. (205 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 155 m.p.h. (250 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 950 mb.<\/p>\n
After striking Guam as a tropical storm on Wednesday Maria rapidly intensified into a strong typhoon on Thursday.\u00a0 A circular eye was evident on satellite imagery.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of strong thunderstorms.\u00a0 Several bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Storm in the core were generating strong upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the typhoon in all directions.\u00a0 Winds to typhoon force extended out about 35 miles (55 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 155 miles (250 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Maria was 23.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 14.1 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 37.7.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Maria will continue to move through an environment favorable for intensification for another day or two.\u00a0 Maria will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region of weaker winds between an upper level low to the west and an upper level low to the east.\u00a0 There will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Typhoon Maria is likely to intensify more on Friday and it could become the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 An eyewall replacement cycle could occur if one of the rainbands wraps around existing eye and eyewall.\u00a0 If an eyewall replacement cycle starts, it will cause Typhoon Maria to weaken at least temporarily.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Maria was moving south of a subtropical ridge over the Western North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The ridge was steering Maria toward the northwest.\u00a0 A general motion toward the northwest is expected to continue for another day or two.\u00a0 The ridge is forecast to strengthen after that time and it will steer Typhoon Maria more toward the west-northwest.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Maria will pass south of Iwo To.\u00a0 Typhoon Maria could approach Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands in four or five days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Maria rapidly intensified Thursday into the equivalent of a major hurricane as it moved west of the Mariana Islands.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Typhoon Maria was located at latitude 15.7\u00b0N and longitude 142.1\u00b0E which put it about 210 miles (340 km) northwest of Guam.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the […]<\/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":[472,43,45,650,107,44,1064,125,194,130,42,1069,1056,473],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136"}],"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=6136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6137,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions\/6137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}