The western edge of Tropical Cyclone Funani brushed Rodrigues on Wednesday and Tropical Cyclone Gelena also posed a threat to the island.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Funani was located at latitude 18.1\u00b0S and longitude 65.1\u00b0E which put it about 515 miles (830 km) east-northeast of Port Louis, Mauritius and about 155 miles (250 km) northeast of Rodrigues.\u00a0 Funani was moving toward the southeast at 7 m.p.h. (11 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 105 m.p.h. (170 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 125 m.p.h. (205 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 968 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Funani rapidly intensified into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Wednesday.\u00a0 An eye was apparent on satellite images.\u00a0 A ring of strong thunderstorms surrounded the eye and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Funani generated strong upper level divergence which pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Tropical Cyclone Funani.\u00a0 There were more bands in the eastern half of the circulation.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out about 35 miles (55 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 140 miles (225 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Funani will be in an environment favorable for intensification for another 12 to 24 hours.\u00a0 Funani will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through an area where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Funani could strengthen into the equivalent of a major hurricane during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Funani will move over cooler water at the end of the week and it will start to weaken in a less favorable environment.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Funani is moving south of a subtropical ridge which is steering the tropical cyclone toward the southeast.\u00a0 A general motion toward the southeast is expected to continue during the next few days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the core of Tropical Cyclone Funani will pass east of Rodrigues.\u00a0 Surface observations on Rodrigues indicate that the western portion of Funani is dropping rain on that island, but winds are generally blowing at less than tropical storm force.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gelena also poses a threat to Rodrigues.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gelena was located at latitude 12.5\u00b0S and longitude 53.2\u00b0E which put it about 535 miles (865 km) north-northwest of Port Louis, Mauritius.\u00a0 Gelena was moving toward the south-southwest at 3 m.p.h. (5 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 987 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gelena also intensified rapidly on Wednesday.\u00a0 A tiny, pinhole eye was apparent on satellite imagery.\u00a0 A thin ring of thunderstorms surrounded the eye and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Storms near the core of Gelena were generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Tropical Cyclone Gelena.\u00a0 There were more bands in the northern half of the circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 90 miles (150 km) from the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gelena will also move through an environment favorable for intensification.\u00a0 Gelena will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through an area where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gelena is likely to intensify into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Gelena could strengthen into the equivalent of a major hurricane during the next several days.<\/p>\n
Although Tropical Cyclone Gelena is currently weaker and smaller than Tropical Cyclone Funani, it may pose a greater risk to Rodrigues.\u00a0 Gelena is forecast to pass closer to Rodrigues than Funani will pass and Gelena may be the equivalent of a major hurricane when it moves near Rodrigues.\u00a0 Gelena could bring strong winds and heavy rain to Rodrigues in about 48 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The western edge of Tropical Cyclone Funani brushed Rodrigues on Wednesday and Tropical Cyclone Gelena also posed a threat to the island.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Funani was located at latitude 18.1\u00b0S and longitude 65.1\u00b0E which put it about 515 miles (830 km) east-northeast of Port Louis, Mauritius […]<\/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":[643,647,1438,1441,84,85,74,1408,1439,339,648,1437,1440],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368"}],"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=7368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7368\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}