Typhoon Maria rapidly intensified into the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Thursday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Typhoon Maria was located at latitude 16.2\u00b0N and longitude 141.9\u00b0E which put it about 250 miles (405 km) northwest of Guam.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the northwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 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
Typhoon Maria continued to intensify rapidly on Thursday night and it reached the equivalent of Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 Maria is a strong, well organized typhoon.\u00a0 There is a small circular eye at the center of circulation.\u00a0 The eye is surrounded by a ring of strong thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Typhoon Maria.\u00a0 Storms in the core were generating strong upper level divergence which was pumping large amounts of mass away from the typhoon.\u00a0 The rapid removal of mass allowed the surface pressure to decrease quickly and the wind speeds to increase rapidly.<\/p>\n
Winds to typhoon\/hurricane force extended out about 45 miles (75 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 155 miles (250 km) from the center.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Typhoon Maria was 43.5.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 17.8 and the Hurricane Wind\u00a0 Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 51.3.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Maria will move through an environment favorable for strong tropical cyclones 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 an area where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Typhoon Maria could intensify further on Friday.\u00a0 However, a rainband could wrap around the existing eye and eyewall.\u00a0 If that occurs, then an eyewall replacement cycle will begin.\u00a0 Maria would weaken while the inner eyewall dissipates.\u00a0 The typhoon could strengthen again if the outer eyewall contracts around the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Typhoon Maria was moving south of a subtropical ridge which was steering Maria toward the northwest.\u00a0 The northwesterly motion is expected to continue for another 24 to 48 hours.\u00a0 After that time the ridge is forecast to strengthen and steer Maria more toward the west-northwest.\u00a0 on its anticipated track Typhoon Maria could approach Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands in about four days.\u00a0 Maris is likely to be a powerful typhoon at that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Typhoon Maria rapidly intensified into the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Thursday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Typhoon Maria was located at latitude 16.2\u00b0N and longitude 141.9\u00b0E which put it about 250 miles (405 km) northwest of Guam.\u00a0 Maria was moving toward the northwest […]<\/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":[472,43,45,650,44,1064,46,194,130,42,1069,473],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139"}],"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=6139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6140,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6139\/revisions\/6140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}