Major Tropical Cyclone Kenneth brought strong wind and rain to the Comoros on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Kenneth was located at latitude 11.3\u00b0S and longitude 42.8\u00b0E which put it about 35 miles (55 km) north of the Comoros.\u00a0 Kenneth was moving toward the west at 13 m.p.h. (20 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 145 m.p.h. (235 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 954 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Kenneth intensified rapidly on Tuesday into the equivalent of a major hurricane.\u00a0 A small circular eye appeared at the center of circulation on infrared satellite images.\u00a0 The eye was surrounded by a ring of strong thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Storms near the core were generating strong upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the tropical cyclone in all directions.<\/p>\n
Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out about 35 miles (55 km) from the center of Tropical Cyclone Kenneth.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 130 miles (215 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Kenneth was 20.1.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 11.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 31.1.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Kenneth was capable of causing major damage.<\/p>\n
The southern half of the eyewall of Tropical Cyclone Kenneth passed over northern Grande Comore (Njazidja).\u00a0 Mitsamiouli and Mbeni were likely to have experienced winds to hurricane\/typhoon force.\u00a0 Strong winds may have also affected the capital, Moroni.\u00a0 Major wind damage may have occurred in those areas.\u00a0 Heavy rain falling on steep slopes may cause flash flooding.\u00a0 Easterly winds blowing up the slopes would have enhanced rainfall and the greatest risks for flooding were on the eastern sides of the mountains.\u00a0 Those easterly winds may have also generated a significant storms surge along the northeast coast of Grande Comore (Njazidja).<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Kenneth will move through an environment very favorable for intensification during the next 12 to 18 hours.\u00a0 Kenneth will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the axis of an upper level ridge where the winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Kenneth is likely to intensify more while it moves across the Mozambique Channel.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Kenneth will move north of a subtropical ridge.\u00a0 The ridge will steer Kenneth a little to the south of due west.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Cyclone Kenneth will make landfall on the north coast of Mozambique between Ibo and Mocimboa da Praia in about 18 hours.\u00a0 Kenneth is likely to be a strong tropical cyclone at the time of landfall.\u00a0 It will be capable of causing major wind damage and a storm surge at the coast.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Kenneth will also drop heavy rain when it moves inland over northern Mozambique and it could cause additional flooding in that region.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Lorna moved gradually farther away from Diego Garcia.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Lorna was located at latitude 10.3\u00b0S and longitude 84.8\u00b0E which put it about 855 miles (1380 km) east-southeast of Diego Garcia.\u00a0 Lorna was moving toward the east at 4 m.p.h. (6 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 997 mb.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Major Tropical Cyclone Kenneth brought strong wind and rain to the Comoros on Wednesday.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Kenneth was located at latitude 11.3\u00b0S and longitude 42.8\u00b0E which put it about 35 miles (55 km) north of the Comoros.\u00a0 Kenneth was moving toward the west at 13 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":[1485,1489,1491,352,650,1484,1488,85,86,1486,1490,1483,1487],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670"}],"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=7670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7671,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7670\/revisions\/7671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}