The structure of Tropical Storm Blanca continued to improve on Tuesday and it intensified into a hurricane.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Blanca was located at latitude 13.1\u00b0N and longitude 104.6\u00b0W which put it about 375 miles (605 km) south-southwest of Zihuatanejo, Mexico and about 410 miles (655 km) south of Manzanillo, Mexico.\u00a0 Blanca was stationary.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h) and there were gusts to 90 m.p.h. (145 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 960 mb.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) was 10.4, the Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 5.8 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 16.2.\u00a0 Since Blanca and Andres both became hurricanes this year, June 2 becomes the earliest date on record by which time two hurricanes formed over the Eastern North Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 However, it should be noted that the most reliable records only go back to 1971.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Blanca is sitting over water where the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It is efficiently extracting energy from the upper ocean and that energy is fueling its intensification.\u00a0 Spiral bands of thunderstorms are well organized and the strongest storms are near the center of circulation.\u00a0 The thermodynamic environment is very favorable for further intensification and rapid intensification is possible.\u00a0 There are a several of factors that could slow the rate of intensification at times.\u00a0 Upper level outflow from Hurricane Andres, which is about a thousand miles west of Blanca, appears to be generating some vertical wind shear on the northern and western sides of Blanca.\u00a0 Thunderstorms in Blanca are producing upper level divergence, but some of the divergence may be reduced in the northwestern quadrant of the hurricane.\u00a0 Andres is slowly spinning down and the wind shear is likely to lessen during the next several days.\u00a0 A second potential inhibiting factor is the fact that Blanca is not moving much.\u00a0 The warm water underneath Blanca is relatively deep, but if it sits in one location long enough, its winds will eventually begin\u00a0 to mix some cooler water to the surface.\u00a0 For the time being Blanca has sufficient energy in the upper ocean to support further intensification.\u00a0 Once Blanca starts moving, then it will be over warm SSTs until it approaches latitude 20\u00b0N.\u00a0 Finally, if Blanca gets as strong as some guidance suggest it could, then eyewall replacement cycles also could produce fluctuations in intensity.\u00a0 As I mentioned above, Blanca is likely to intensify further and it could intensify rapidly at times.<\/p>\n
A ridge in the middle levels centered near Baja California is blocking the northward progress of Blanca and the hurricane is in an area where the steering currents are weak.\u00a0 The ridge is forecast to move slowly eastward toward a position over northern Mexico and Texas.\u00a0 As the ridge moves eastward it will initially steer Blanca toward the northwest.\u00a0 In several days the ridge will cause Blanca to turn more toward the north.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Blanca could approach the southern tip of Baja California in a few days.\u00a0 It is too early to know how strong Blanca might be at that time or how much of a risk it might pose to that area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The structure of Tropical Storm Blanca continued to improve on Tuesday and it intensified into a hurricane.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Blanca was located at latitude 13.1\u00b0N and longitude 104.6\u00b0W which put it about 375 miles (605 km) south-southwest of Zihuatanejo, Mexico and about 410 miles (655 km) south […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[39,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893"}],"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=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}