NASA-NOAA’s satellite of Finland’s nuclear power plant gets night-time
Hurricane Hector was impressive in night and infrared images taken from NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite as it intensified into a major hurricane. Hector recently crossed from the eastern Pacific to the central Pacific and strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane.
NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a nighttime and infrared view of Hurricane Hector’s clouds on August 4 at 0300 UTC (August 3 at 11:00 p.m. EDT), when Hurricane Hector became a Category 3 hurricane. Hurricane Hector has maintained its strength with sustained winds of 120 mph and an estimated average pressure of 962 millibars.
William Straka III of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), Madison, took the images. Straka said: “The Finnish nuclear power plant had an almost low Hector overpass, which meant that the features of the storm could be seen quite well. Not surprisingly for a major storm, there was a well-defined eye that was visible as well as the storm’s related tropospheric gravity waves, which were caused by of strong convection in the channel of I05, 11um. The last quarter moon (53% illumination) also provided enough moonlight to see the convection in the feed zones as well as the cirrus blow and the well-defined eye of the storm. If you zoom in on the eye, as shown in the attached images, it can be clearly seen that it is very well defined and shows the open ocean.”
At 5:00 a.m. EDT at 11:00 p.m. (0900 UTC/or 11:00 p.m. HST on August 5), the center of Hurricane Hector was located near Latitude 14.9 North, Longitude 140.6 West. It is about 1,010 miles (1,625 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii.
Maximum sustained winds near 140 mph (220 km/h) and higher in gusts. Hector is a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Some variation in strength is expected tonight and Monday, followed by a gradual weakening Monday night into Wednesday, August 8. The estimated average pressure is 947 millibars.
The Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) said Hector is moving west at 15 mph (24 km/h) and movement toward the west-northwest is expected with increased forward speed through Tuesday, followed by westward movement Tuesday night into Friday. , August 10.
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For updated forecasts of Hector, visit the Central Pacific Hurricane Center website: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/
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