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***** Hurricanes Henriette and Felix *****
Posted September 5, 2007
[Hurricanes_Henriette_and_Felix]
download_large_image (8 MB, JPEG)  
Within less than three hours on September 3, 2007, the Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured images of
two separate hurricanes near Central America: Henriette off Baja California,
and Felix off the coast of Nicaragua. This composite image shows the images
collected in two consecutive orbits around the globe. Breaks in coverage
between the orbits appear in gray.
At 12:30 p.m. local time (18:30 UTC) on September 3, MODIS observed Hurricane
Felix heading toward Nicaragua. The following day, Felix came ashore as a
Category 5 storm, with sustained winds of 260 kilometers (160 miles) per hour,
according to the National_Hurricane_Center. Felix was the second Category 5
Atlantic storm in August; Dean pursued a more northerly track before slamming
into the Yucatan on August 21. Felix was predicted to continue its westward
journey over Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, causing potentially
devastating floods.
At 2:10 p.m. local time (21:10 UTC) on September 3, MODIS observed Hurricane
Henriette moving up the Pacific Coast. Henriette was the first Pacific
hurricane of the season to make landfall. Storms that form in that part of the
Pacific usually head west or northwest away from land. Compared to the thick,
bright clouds of Hurricane Felix, Henriette’s swirling clouds appears more
ragged and stretched out. Despite its greater size, Hurricane Henriette packed
less of a punch than Felix; it was anticipated to travel through Mexico and the
United States as a Category 1 storm.
Due to the large area covered by this scene, the high-resolution version of
this image uses 500-meter-resolution data, not the sensor’s maximum spatial
resolution (250 meters). For 250-meter-resolution images and more information
on the individual storms, visit the Earth Observatory’s Natural Hazards pages
on Felix and Henriette.
You can download a 500-meter-resolution_KMZ_file_of_the_pair_of_hurricanes
suitable for use with Google_Earth.
Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS_Rapid_Response_Team, NASA GSFC
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last updated: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:39:39 GMT