Tropical Cyclone Gretel formed over the Coral Sea east of Australia on Saturday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gretel was located at latitude 18.2\u00b0S and longitude 158.7\u00b0E which put it about 380 miles (615 km) west-northwest of Poum, New Caledonia.\u00a0 Gretel was moving toward the east-southeast at 22 m.p.h. (36 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 992 mb.<\/p>\n
The circulation around an area of low pressure over the Coral Sea became better organized on Saturday and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology designated the system as Tropical Cyclone Gretel.\u00a0 The circulation around Gretel was still organizing.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were developing in all parts of the circulation.\u00a0 Thunderstorms near the center of Gretel began to generate upper level divergence which pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 100 miles (160 km) from the center of circulation.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gretel will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next day or so.\u00a0 Gretel will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under a small upper level ridge.\u00a0 The winds are weaker in the center of the ridge and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Gretel will intensify during the next 24 to 36 hours and it could strengthen into the equivalent of a hurricane\/typhoon.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Gretel will move around the southwestern portion of a subtropical high pressure system over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high will steer Gretel toward the east-southeast.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Gretel could pass just west of New Caledonia during the next 18 to 30 hours.\u00a0 Gretel will bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to New Caledonia on Sunday.\u00a0 The center of Tropical Cyclone Gretel could approach Norfolk Island in about 36 hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tropical Cyclone Gretel formed over the Coral Sea east of Australia on Saturday.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Tropical Cyclone Gretel was located at latitude 18.2\u00b0S and longitude 158.7\u00b0E which put it about 380 miles (615 km) west-northwest of Poum, New Caledonia.\u00a0 Gretel was moving toward the east-southeast at 22 m.p.h. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,76,2],"tags":[1969,79,1968,88,1971,1970,1943,1473,1967],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9335"}],"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=9335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9336,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9335\/revisions\/9336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}