Tropical Cyclone Oma formed over the Coral Sea northwest of Vanuatu on Tuesday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Oma was located at latitude 13.8\u00b0S and longitude 165.6\u00b0E which put it about 330 miles (535 km) northwest of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Oma was moving toward the east at 7 m.p.h. (11 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 988 mb.<\/p>\n
A distinct low level center of circulation formed within a broader area of low pressure northwest of Vanuatu on Tuesday and the Fiji Meteorological Service designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Oma.\u00a0 The distribution of thunderstorms around Oma was asymmetrical.\u00a0 Many of the stronger thunderstorms were occurring in bands northwest of the center of circulation.\u00a0 Bands southeast of the center consisted primarily of showers and lower clouds.\u00a0 The thunderstorms northwest of the center were generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away to the northwest of the tropical cyclone.<\/p>\n
An upper level ridge northeast of Vanuatu was producing southeasterly winds which were blowing toward the top of Tropical Cyclone Oma.\u00a0 Those winds were causing moderate vertical wind shear and they were inhibiting upper level divergence to the southeast of Oma.\u00a0 The wind shear was the probable cause of the asymmetrical distribution of thunderstorms.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Oma will move through an environment somewhat favorable for intensification during the next several days.\u00a0 The upper level ridge will continue to cause vertical wind shear.\u00a0 However, Oma will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Oma could slowly strengthen during the next day or two.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Oma is currently embedded in a monsoon trough that is steering it toward the east.\u00a0 A subtropical ridge is forecast to strengthen east of Vanuatu.\u00a0 Oma will slow down while the ridge builds east of Vanuatu and it could linger northwest of Vanuatu for several days.\u00a0 The ridge will eventually turn Tropical Cyclone Oma toward the south.\u00a0 The timing and location of that turn will be important.\u00a0 If Oma moves farther east before it turns southward, then it could approach northwest Vanuatu in 24 to 36 hours.\u00a0 If Oma stalls and then turns southward, then the strongest part of the tropical cyclone could pass west of Vanuatu.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Oma could eventually move near New Caledonia in a few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Oma formed over the Coral Sea northwest of Vanuatu on Tuesday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Oma was located at latitude 13.8\u00b0S and longitude 165.6\u00b0E which put it about 330 miles (535 km) northwest of Port Vila, Vanuatu.\u00a0 Oma was moving toward the east at 7 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":[76,2],"tags":[1444,79,88,1443,964,653,1442,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393"}],"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=7393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7394,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393\/revisions\/7394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}