Page 2 - The Cloud Tops News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Compact. it can fluctuate both strengthen and weaken very quickly. and it's hard to determine just exactly what it will do. for right now, it's strengthening. hurricane force winds only about 10 miles out from the center. winds are up to 80 miles per hour. it's moving west/northwest at just about 10 miles per hour. it should maintain hurricane 1 status for at least the beginning of the weekend. as we go he will he into sunday should weaken into a tropical storm as it moves in to the leeward islands and ed. ly toward puerto rico. these are the winds that will tear the stormand. ly toward puerto...

Known point of contact initially, the reports had it at about 10 kilometers. now that's moved between 100 to 200 kill meters from the last point in contact. here's the current perspective. look at these thunderstorms. anything you see in red ipd indicati indication. this is infrared, using the thermal signature of the cloud tops. a lot of these cloud tops very cool. 40,000, 50,000 feet high. notice the areas of interest. some lower clouds, still some moderate thunderstorms in the vicinity. take a look, the hateful coming down on the moderate end of this scale. a significant band of wet weather...

North that unusual. it was a very new plane 13,000 cycles. for a six-year-old plane that's a lot but that's are short hauls. two hours was the longest. 23,000 flight hours, experts say that's a lot of cycles because planes have a lot of stress when they take off and land and pressurize and then tee pressurize. may have been a contributing factor but most people say these planes can good for years and years and years. >> generally they're very robust. thank you. more now on the weather those pilots were dealing with at the time officials lost contact with them. janice dean is live in the fox ...

Is that across the board internationally? >> that's across the board internationally. even that is a little bit too close. and most pilots will tell you they want to stay further away from the thunderstorms. thunderstorms are probably the most dangerous thing that we routinely have to fly around. >> so in asking to deviate from its normal path was he trying to fly above the thunderstorms or what was going on here? >> asking to go from 32000 to 38,000 feet, thunderstorms can routinely go above that. in fact, the cloud tops here were reported to be at 50,000 feet. so he may have found himself to...

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