Tropical Cyclone Damien strengthened to the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Thursday night.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Damien was located at latitude 18.0\u00b0S and longitude 117.2\u00b0E which put it about 190 miles (310 km) north of Karratha, Australia.\u00a0 Damien was moving toward the southwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 75 m.p.h. (120 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 90 m.p.h. (145 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 979 mb.<\/p>\n
A Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast of Western Australia from Wallal Downs to Mardie including Port Hedland, Karratha and Dampier.\u00a0 A Watch was in effect for the coast from Mardia to Onslow.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Damien organized quickly on Thursday.\u00a0 Microwave satellite imagery suggested that a small eye could be forming at the center of Damien.\u00a0 A small ring of thunderstorms surrounded the forming eye and the strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the core of Tropical Cyclone Damien.\u00a0 Storms near the core were generating upper level divergence which was pumping mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 90 miles (145 km) from the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Damien will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Damien will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the western end of an upper level ridge over Australia.\u00a0 The ridge will produce northeasterly winds which will blow toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will cause some vertical wind shear, but the shear will not be strong enough to prevent intensification.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Damien will strengthen during the next 24 hours and it could rapidly intensify into the equivalent of a major hurricane.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Damien will move around the western end of a high pressure system centered over Australia.\u00a0 The high will steer Damien toward the south during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Damien could make landfall on the coast of Western Australia in the vicinity of Dampier, Karratha and Wickham in about 24 hours.\u00a0 Damien could be the equivalent of a major hurricane when it reaches the coast.\u00a0 It will produce strong gusty winds.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Damien will also drop locally heavy rain and flash floods could occur in some locations.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere over the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Francisco weakened east of Rodrigues.\u00a0 At 4:00 a.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Francisco was located at latitude 19.3\u00b0S and longitude 71.7\u00b0E which put it about 565 miles (910 km) east of Port Mathurin, Mauritius.\u00a0 Francisco was moving toward the southeast at 13 m.p.h. (20 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 40 m.p.h. (65 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 50 m.p.h. (80 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1001 mb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Damien strengthened to the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon on Thursday night.\u00a0 At 10:00 p.m. EST on Thursday the center of Tropical Cyclone Damien was located at latitude 18.0\u00b0S and longitude 117.2\u00b0E which put it about 190 miles (310 km) north of Karratha, Australia.\u00a0 Damien was moving toward the southwest at 7 m.p.h. (11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,48,2],"tags":[647,973,1931,1928,1565,1932,1934,74,1927,979,1925,1439,648,974,1930,1929,1897,94,1933],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208"}],"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=9208"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9209,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9208\/revisions\/9209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}