Tropical Cyclone Sarai brought wind and rain to Fiji in Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Sarai was located at latitude 19.3\u00b0S and longitude 177.0\u00b0E which put it about 100 miles (160 km) west-southwest of Kadavu, Fiji.\u00a0 Sarai was moving toward the southeast at 12 m.p.h. (19 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 70 m.p.h. (110 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 85 m.p.h. (135 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 983 mb.<\/p>\n
The center of Tropical Cyclone Sarai passed west of Nadi, Fiji on Friday, but rainbands in the eastern side of the circulation produced gusty winds and heavy rain.\u00a0 A surface weather station in Nadi measured a sustained wind speed of 44 m.p.h. (70 km\/h) and wind gusts of 67 m.p.h. (107 km\/h).<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Sarai continued to intensify on Friday.\u00a0 The inner end of a rainband wrapped much of the way around the center of circulation.\u00a0 The rainband had not wrapped entirely around the northwestern part of the center,\u00a0 A clear area at the center began to appear on satellite images, which could be evidence of formation of an eye.\u00a0 Storms around the center were generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away to the east of the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Cyclone Sarai was large.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 200 miles (320 km) from the center of Sarai.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Sarai will move through an environment favorable for intensification for another 24 to 36 hours.\u00a0 Sarai will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move south of an upper level ridge.\u00a0 The ridge will produce westerly winds which will blow toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause moderate vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The wind shear will inhibit intensification, but it will not be strong enough to keep Tropical Cyclone Sarai from strengthening into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Sarai will move south of a subtropical high pressure system over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The ridge will steer Sarai toward the east.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Sarai will pass south of Suva, Fiji.\u00a0 The core of Sarai will pass near Kadavu, Fiji in about 12 to 18 hours.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Sarai will bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to Kadavu.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods in some locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Sarai brought wind and rain to Fiji in Friday.\u00a0 At 4:00 p.m. EST on Friday the center of Tropical Cyclone Sarai was located at latitude 19.3\u00b0S and longitude 177.0\u00b0E which put it about 100 miles (160 km) west-southwest of Kadavu, Fiji.\u00a0 Sarai was moving toward the southeast at 12 m.p.h. (19 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],"tags":[1879,89,1881,1880,1878,620,987,1877],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9071"}],"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=9071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9072,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9071\/revisions\/9072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}