Formation
On August 18, 2008, a tropical wave which had left the coast of Africa five days previously, developed into a significant low pressure area about 600 miles (970 km) west-southwest of the Cape Verde islands. This wave moved westward across the Atlantic in conditions that were not favorable for development. As it began to approach the windward islands conditions improved and it showed some signs of organization, but no circulation. Upon reaching the windward islands on August 23, bringing showers, thunderstorms, and generally squally weather, wind shear over the system decreased and atmospheric conditions improved. Over the eastern Caribbean Sea, about 250 miles (400 km) south of Santo Domingo, a low level circulation began to form. Hours later well-defined curved bands and an improving circulation at the surface warranted that the system be designated a tropical depression.
The depression formed a small inner wind core 25 mi (40 km) in diameter which allowed it to rapidly organize, and on the afternoon of August 25 it was upgraded to a tropical storm and first given the name Gustav. A renewed period of disorganization proved to be very short lived, and that night a well-defined eye formed. This eye was accompanied by strengthening as the storm continued to move northwest towards Haiti. Before reaching the island, Gustav's strengthening pattern raised it to hurricane strength. Its prominent and organizing central dense overcast belied persistent strengthening which continued until Hurricane Gustav made landfall on Haiti's southwest peninsula about 10 mi (16 km) west of Jacmel around 1730 UTC on August 26, with winds of 90 mph (140 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 981 mbar (28.97 inHg).
Read more about this topic: Meteorological History Of Hurricane Gustav
Famous quotes containing the word formation:
“That for which Paul lived and died so gloriously; that for which Jesus gave himself to be crucified; the end that animated the thousand martyrs and heroes who have followed his steps, was to redeem us from a formal religion, and teach us to seek our well-being in the formation of the soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“The formation of an oppositional world view is necessary for feminist struggle. This means that the world we have most intimately known, the world in which we feel “safe” ... must be radically changed. Perhaps it is the knowledge that everyone must change, not just those we label enemies or oppressors, that has so far served to check our revolutionary impulses.”
—Bell (c. 1955)