The government of Mexico issued a Tropical Storm Watch for the southern portion of Baja California.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Blanca was located at latitude 15.3\u00b0N and longitude 107.5\u00b0W which put it about 550 miles (880 km) south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and about 330 miles (535 km) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico.\u00a0 Blanca was moving toward the northwest at 9 m.p.h. (15 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 90 m.p.h. (150 km\/h) and there were gusts to 115 m.p.h. (185 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 976 mb.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) was 13.9, the Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 17.7 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 31.6.\u00a0 A reconnaissance aircraft investigated Blanca on Friday afternoon and so there is high confidence in the data about its strength and position.\u00a0 The government of Mexico issued a Tropical Storm Watch for the portion of the coast from La Paz to Santa Fe including Cabo San Lucas.<\/p>\n
Satellite imagery and data from the reconnaissance plane indicate that the structure of Blanca is more well organized.\u00a0 A ring of thunderstorms surrounds a circular eye with a diameter of about 60 miles (65 km).\u00a0 However, the better organization has not produced an increase in the wind speed as yet.\u00a0 However, the aircraft did find winds to 105 m.p.h. (170 km\/h) in the northwestern portion of the eyewall.\u00a0 If downdrafts in thunderstorms in the eyewall bring those winds to the surface, then there could be some intensification.<\/p>\n
Blanca is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is about 29\u00b0C and there is sufficient energy in the upper ocean to support some increase in wind speed.\u00a0 As the hurricane moves farther north it will move over cooler SSTs and when it gets near latitude 20\u00b0N in about 36 hours, it will start to move over much cooler water.\u00a0 So, there is a potential for some intensification on Saturday, but Blanca will start to weaken as it approaches the southern tip of Baja California on Sunday.<\/p>\n
A ridge northeast of Blanca and a trough west of Baja California are combining to steer Blanca toward the northwest.\u00a0 As it moves farther north, it is likely to turn a little more toward the north.\u00a0 Blanca is likely to approach the southern tip of Baja California on Sunday which is the reason for the Tropical Storm Watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government of Mexico issued a Tropical Storm Watch for the southern portion of Baja California.\u00a0 At 5:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Hurricane Blanca was located at latitude 15.3\u00b0N and longitude 107.5\u00b0W which put it about 550 miles (880 km) south-southeast of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and about 330 miles (535 km) […]<\/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\/916"}],"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=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":919,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}