Powerful Tropical Cyclone Harold brought strong wind and heavy rain to parts of Fiji on Tuesday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Harold was located at latitude 19.4\u00b0S and longitude 178.7\u00b0E which put it about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Tavuki, Fiji.\u00a0 Harold was moving toward the east-southeast at 22 m.p.h (35 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 140 m.p.h. (225 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 165 m.p.h. (270 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 930 mb.<\/p>\n
The eye of Tropical Cyclone Harold passed directly over Kadavu Island, Fiji on Tuesday night.\u00a0 The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Harold was 28.3.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 19.7 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 48.0.\u00a0 Tropical Cyclone Harold probably caused significant damage to Kadavu.\u00a0 Harold also brought gusty winds and heavy rain to Viti Levu.\u00a0 Flash floods were likely to have occurred in areas that received heavy rain.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Harold strengthened on Tuesday after it moved away from Vanuatu where it caused significant damage.\u00a0 The eye became evident on satellite imagery again and a solid ring of thunderstorms formed a strong eyewall.\u00a0 The strongest winds were occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Storms around the core of Harold generated strong upper level divergence which pumped mass away from the tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The size of the circulation around Tropical Cyclone Harold continued to increase in size.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane\/typhoon force extended out 65 miles (105 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out 250 miles (400 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Harold will move into an area less favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Harold will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 28\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move under the southwestern part of an upper level ridge over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The ridge will produce northwesterly winds which will blow toward the top of the circulation.\u00a0 Those winds will increase in speed during the next 48 hours and the increased vertical wind shear will cause Tropical Cyclone Harold to weaken.\u00a0 Harold could weaken slowly during the next 12 to 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Tropical Cyclone Harold will move around the southwestern part of a high pressure system over the South Pacific Ocean.\u00a0 The high will steer Harold quickly toward the east-southeast.\u00a0 On its anticipated track the center of Tropical Cyclone Harold could reach Tonga within 12 to 18 hours.\u00a0 Harold will be the equivalent of a major hurricane when it reaches Tonga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Powerful Tropical Cyclone Harold brought strong wind and heavy rain to parts of Fiji on Tuesday night.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Tropical Cyclone Harold was located at latitude 19.4\u00b0S and longitude 178.7\u00b0E which put it about 30 miles (50 km) southeast of Tavuki, Fiji.\u00a0 Harold was moving toward the east-southeast […]<\/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":[1981,89,1980,1881,1490,1997,307,1979,90,988],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9407"}],"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=9407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9408,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9407\/revisions\/9408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}