Tropical Cyclone Sarai formed northwest of Fiji on Thursday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Sarai was located at latitude 14.9\u00b0S and longitude 175.8\u00b0E which put it about 220 miles (355 km) north-northwest of Nadi, Fiji.\u00a0 Sarai was moving toward the south at 14 m.p.h. (22 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 995 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation around a low pressure system northwest of Fiji exhibited greater organization on Thursday and the Fiji Meteorological Service designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Sarai.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Sarai was still organizing.\u00a0 A band of showers and thunderstorms wrapped around the southern and western sides of the center of circulation.\u00a0 Other bands of showers and thunderstorms were developing and the bands were starting to revolve around the center.\u00a0 Storms near the center were generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Sarai was large.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 150 miles (240 km) from the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Sarai will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 48 hours.\u00a0 Sarai will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the western end of an upper level ridge.\u00a0 The ridge will produce northerly winds which will blow toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 However, there will be northerly winds at most levels of the troposphere, which means that there will not be a lot of vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Sarai will intensify during the next 36 to 48 hours and it could strengthen into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Sarai will move around the western end of a subtropical high pressure system over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high will steer Sarai toward the south during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Sarai will turn more toward the east in a day or so when it rounds the end of the ridge.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Sarai could approach western Fiji in 24 to 36 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Sarai formed northwest of Fiji on Thursday.\u00a0 At 10:00 a.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Sarai was located at latitude 14.9\u00b0S and longitude 175.8\u00b0E which put it about 220 miles (355 km) north-northwest of Nadi, Fiji.\u00a0 Sarai was moving toward the south at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained […]<\/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":[1879,89,1880,1878,620,987,1877],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064"}],"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=9064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9065,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions\/9065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}