Hurricane Dorian strengthened to a major hurricane on Friday afternoon.\u00a0 Data from a reconnaissance plane indicated that Hurricane Dorian had strengthened to Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Friday afternoon, which meant it was a major hurricane.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Dorian was located at latitude 24.8\u00b0N and longitude 70.3\u00b0W which put it about 625 miles (1005 km) east of West Palm Beach, Florida.\u00a0 Dorian was moving toward the northwest at 10 m.p.h. (16 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 140 m.p.h. (225 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 970 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Watches had been issued for the Northwestern Bahamas.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Hurricane Dorian exhibited much more impressive organization on satellite images and radar products generated by reconnaissance aircraft.\u00a0 Clouds cleared out of the eye and it became even more circular.\u00a0 The diameter of the eye was 21 miles (34 km).\u00a0 The eye was surround by a ring of strong thunderstorms and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 The overall appearance of Hurricane Dorian was more symmetrical.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Storms around the core generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the hurricane.<\/p>\n
The circulation around Hurricane Dorian was still small.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extended out about 25 miles from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 100 miles from the center.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Dorian was 20.6.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 9.0 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Index (HWISI) was 29.6.\u00a0 Hurricane Dorian was already capable of causing major damage.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Dorian will move through an environment that is favorable for intensification.\u00a0 Dorian 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 Hurricane Dorian could start a period of rapid intensification at any time.\u00a0 Dorian will almost certainly intensify to Category 4 and there is the potential for it to strengthen to Category 5.\u00a0 After Hurricane Dorian strengthens, eyewall replacement cycles could cause fluctuations in intensity.<\/p>\n
A ridge of high pressure north of Hurricane Dorian is starting to turn Dorian more toward the west.\u00a0 The high is forecast to steer Dorian toward the west during the next two to three days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Dorian will be near the Northwestern Bahamas on Sunday and it will approach the southeast coast of Florida on Monday.\u00a0 Dorian will reach the western end of the high when it gets close to the Florida coast.\u00a0 Hurricane Dorian could slow down and turn northward on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Dorian strengthened to a major hurricane on Friday afternoon.\u00a0 Data from a reconnaissance plane indicated that Hurricane Dorian had strengthened to Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Friday afternoon, which meant it was a major hurricane.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Dorian was located at latitude 24.8\u00b0N and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[446,447,28,1607,51,98,1621,650,99,1625],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8209"}],"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=8209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8210,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8209\/revisions\/8210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}