Hurricane Season 2010: Tropical Storm Omeka (Central Pacific Ocean)

GOES-11 Sees Central Pacific Unwrap a Rare Tropical Storm: Omeka

The GOES-11 satellite data was used to create a full-disk image of the Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean on Dec. 20 and this image from 1200 UTC (7 a.m. EST) shows Tropical Storm Omeka to the west of a stream of clouds (along a front) in the Pacific.

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-11 is stationary over the western U.S. and provides imagery of that half of the country in addition to visible and infrared images of the eastern and central Pacific Oceans. Satellite data was used to create a full-disk image of the Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean on Dec. 20 at 1200 UTC (7 a.m. EST) at the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The image showed Tropical Storm Omeka to the west of a large area of clouds along a frontal boundary in the Pacific. GOES satellites are managed by NOAA.

Tropical storm Omeka, also known as 01C (for Central), was born this morning, December 20 at 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST). It has maximum sustained winds near 45 knots (52 mph) and was moving northeast at 14 mph. It is located about 505 miles south of Midway Island near 20.9 North and 178.2 West. That's about 1,200 miles west of Kauai, Hawaii. Omeka is no threat to land areas as it continues to spin through the Central Pacific.

In December, tropical systems have formed in the central Pacific but it’s a rare occurrence. The last time it happened was 13 years ago in 1997 when Typhoon Paka formed. Omeka is different than Paka, however, because Omeka came from an extra-tropical low that was near 35 degrees north latitude about a week ago and became tropical. The broadness of the feature has far reaching affects, as far as 1200 miles away.

Omeka is forecast to move north into harsh atmospheric conditions (strong wind shear) that are expected to weaken it and cause its dissipation within a couple of days.

Text Credit: Rob Gutro

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD