Tropical Cyclone Gaja moved closer to southern India and strengthened on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gaja was located at latitude 11.7\u00b0N and longitude 83.6\u00b0E which put it about 260 miles (420 km) east of Cuddalore, India.\u00a0 Gaja was moving toward the southwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 996 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gaja strengthened on Wednesday.\u00a0 More thunderstorms developed near the center of circulation.\u00a0 Some microwave images exhibited the appearance of an eyelike feature in the lower levels.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband appeared to be wrapping around the center of Gaja.\u00a0 There were several bands of stronger thunderstorms in the western half of Tropical Cyclone Gaja.\u00a0 Rainbands in the eastern half of the tropical cyclone consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 The storms around the center of circulation were generating strong upper level divergence which was pumping mass away to the northeast of Gaja.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Gaja was relatively small.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force only extended out about 65 miles (105 km) from the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gaja will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Gaja will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move southwest of an upper level ridge.\u00a0 The ridge will produce southeasterly winds which will blow toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will restrict upper level divergence to the southeast of Gaja.\u00a0 They will also cause moderate vertical wind shear, which is probably the reason why most of the stronger thunderstorms are occurring in the western half of the circulation.\u00a0 The wind shear will slow intensification, but Tropical Cyclone Gaja will strengthen during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Gaja could intensify to the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gaja will move south of a ridge in the middle troposphere during the next 48 hours.\u00a0 The ridge will steer Gaja on a track that is a little south of straight westward.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Gaja will approach the coast of southern India in about 24 hours.\u00a0 Gaja will make landfall in Tamil Nadu between Cuddalore and Nagappattinam in a little over a day.\u00a0 It could be the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon when it makes landfall.\u00a0 Gaja will bring strong winds and it could cause a storm surge of 5 to 8 feet (1.5 to 2.5 metres) at the coast.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gaja will drop locally heavy rain over portions of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods in some locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Gaja moved closer to southern India and strengthened on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gaja was located at latitude 11.7\u00b0N and longitude 83.6\u00b0E which put it about 260 miles (420 km) east of Cuddalore, India.\u00a0 Gaja was moving toward the southwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 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":[48,2],"tags":[1362,135,1367,1360,56,654,1361,594,1368,592,1359],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7039"}],"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=7039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7040,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7039\/revisions\/7040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}