Tropical Cyclone Riley strengthened into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Riley was located at latitude 17.2\u00b0S and longitude 116.9\u00b0E which put it about 415 miles (675 km) north-northeast of Learmonth, Australia.\u00a0 Riley was moving toward the west at 5 m.p.h. (8 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 100 m.p.h. (160 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 976 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Riley strengthened, but the distribution of thunderstorms was asymmetrical.\u00a0 The strongest winds were occurring in a band the curled around the northern half of the center of circulation.\u00a0 Storms in the band were generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Other bands of showers and thunderstorms were present in the western half of the circulation, but the bands in the eastern half of Tropical Cyclone Riley consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out about 35 miles (55 km) from the center of circulation and they were occurring mainly north of the center of Riley.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 130 miles (215 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Riley was moving around the northwestern part of an upper level ridge.\u00a0 The ridge was producing easterly winds which were blowing toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds appeared to converge with the upper level divergence on the east side of Riley to produce sinking motion in that part of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The sinking motion was bringing drier air to the lower levels and it appeared to suppressing convection in that region.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Riley may be close to its peak intensity.\u00a0 Riley is currently over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 28\u00b0C, but it will move over cooler water during the next few days.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will continue to produce easterly winds which will blow toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds could strengthen which would cause more vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Riley could intensify during the next 24 hours, but it is more likely to gradually weaken during the next two or three days.<\/p>\n
The ridge will steer Tropical Cyclone Riley toward the west-southwest during the next few days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Riley will remain north of the coast of Western Australia,\u00a0 However, watches and warnings are in effect for portions of the coast in case the Tropical Cyclone Riley moves more toward the south.\u00a0 A Tropical Cyclone Warning is in effect for the portion of the coast from Whim Creek to Onslow including Karratha and Dampier.\u00a0 A Tropical Cyclone Watch is in effect from Onslow to Exmouth.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere around Australia, a Tropical Low was dropping heavy rain over portions of northern Queensland.\u00a0 At 1:00 p.m. EST the center of the Tropical Low was located at latitude 13.8\u00b0S and longitude 141.3\u00b0E which put it about 80 miles (125 km) north-northwest of Pormpuraaw, Australia.\u00a0 It was moving toward the southeast at 6 m.p.h. (10 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 1002 mb.\u00a0 Locally heavy rain could cause floods in parts of northern Queensland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Riley strengthened into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Riley was located at latitude 17.2\u00b0S and longitude 116.9\u00b0E which put it about 415 miles (675 km) north-northeast of Learmonth, Australia.\u00a0 Riley was moving toward the west at 5 m.p.h. (8 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":[81,48,2],"tags":[341,1436,93,82,338,1434,329,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342"}],"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=7342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7343,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7342\/revisions\/7343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}