Tropical Cyclone Pola organized quickly between Fiji and Tonga on Tuesday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Pola was located at latitude 18.8\u00b0S and longitude 176.7\u00b0W which put it about 185 miles (295 km) north-northwest of Nuku’alofa, Tonga.\u00a0 Pola was moving toward the south at 16 m.p.h. (26 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 55 m.p.h. (90 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 70 m.p.h. (110 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 988 mb.<\/p>\n
A well organized low level center of circulation consolidated within a much larger area of showers and thunderstorms north of Tonga on Tuesday and the Fiji Meteorological Service classified the system as Tropical Cyclone Pola.\u00a0 A small circular eye was beginning to appear at the center of circulation on some satellite images.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a narrow ring of strong thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Pola 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 Pola.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 175 miles (280 km) from the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Pola will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 to 36 hours.\u00a0 Pola will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Pola will intensify during the next day or so and it could strengthen into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon.\u00a0 Pola will move over colder water and into a region where the upper level winds are stronger later this week and it will start to weaken at that time.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Pola will move around the northwestern portion of a subtropical ridge over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The ridge will steer Pola in a southward direction.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the core and strongest part of Tropical Cyclone Pola will pass west of Tonga.\u00a0 The outer rainbands on the western side of the circulation could bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to parts of southeastern Fiji.\u00a0 Rainbands on the eastern side of the circulation could also bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to parts of Tonga.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Typhoon Wutip was weakening west of the Marianas.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Typhoon Wutip was located at latitude 15.7\u00b0N and longitude 139.9\u00b0E which put it about 345 miles (560 km) west-northwest of Guam.\u00a0 Wutip was moving toward the north at 3 m.p.h. (5 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 110 m.p.h. (175 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 130 m.p.h. (215 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 972 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Pola organized quickly between Fiji and Tonga on Tuesday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Pola was located at latitude 18.8\u00b0S and longitude 176.7\u00b0W which put it about 185 miles (295 km) north-northwest of Nuku’alofa, Tonga.\u00a0 Pola was moving toward the south at 16 m.p.h. (26 km\/h).\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,2,5],"tags":[406,344,89,45,136,1449,345,307,1448,1447,407,1446],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7462"}],"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=7462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7463,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7462\/revisions\/7463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}