Tropical Cyclone Gelena strengthened into the equivalent of a major hurricane on Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gelena was located at latitude 16.8\u00b0S and longitude 56.9\u00b0E which put it about 265 miles (425 km) north of Port Louis, Mauritius.\u00a0 Gelena was moving toward the southeast at 15 m.p.h. (24 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. (205 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 953 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Gelena strengthened and grew larger on Friday.\u00a0 An eye appeared intermittently at the center of Gelena on satellite imagery.\u00a0 A ring of strong thunderstorms surrounded the eye and the strongest winds were occurring in the ring of storms.\u00a0 More bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out about 50 miles (80 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 175 miles (280 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Tropical Cyclone Gelena was 23.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 17.3 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 40.9.\u00a0 Those indices indicated that tropical Cyclone Gelena was capable of causing major regional damage.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gelena will move through an environment somewhat favorable for intensification for another 12 to 24 hours.\u00a0 Gelena will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 An upper level trough near Madagascar will produce westerly winds which are blowing toward the top of Tropical Cyclone Gelena.\u00a0 Those winds will produce some vertical wind shear and they will inhibit upper level divergence toward the western periphery of Gelena.\u00a0 The wind shear will inhibit intensification, but Tropical Cyclone Gelena could strengthen on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gelena will move south of a subtropical ridge.\u00a0 The ridge will steer Gelena in a southeasterly direction.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Gelena will pass north of Mauritius.\u00a0 However, Gelena could approach Rodrigues within 36 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gelena could bring strong winds and heavy rain to Rodrigues.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the southern Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Funani was speeding toward colder water.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Funani was located at latitude 26.3\u00b0S and longitude 73.4\u00b0E which put it about 805 miles (1295 km) east-southeast of Rodrigues.\u00a0 Funani was moving toward the southeast at 28 m.p.h. (45 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 85 m.p.h. (135 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 105 m.p.h. (170 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 977 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Gelena strengthened into the equivalent of a major hurricane on Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gelena was located at latitude 16.8\u00b0S and longitude 56.9\u00b0E which put it about 265 miles (425 km) north of Port Louis, Mauritius.\u00a0 Gelena was moving toward the southeast at 15 m.p.h. […]<\/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":[643,647,1438,1441,650,84,85,74,1408,1439,339,648,1437,1440],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7378"}],"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=7378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7379,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7378\/revisions\/7379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}