NASA satellite image shows deadly Typhoon Morakot slamming Taiwan
August 7, 2009
NASA's CloudSat captured a side view of Morakot on Aug. 7 and found Morakot's clouds are over 17 km (10 miles) high! Credit: NASA/JPL/CSU/NRL-Monterey
Sometimes satellite imagery will leave a person in awe of nature's power and that's what the latest satellite image from NASA's Aqua satellite will do as it shows the giant Typhoon Morakot's center about to cross Taiwan. Morakot has already caused problems in Taiwan on its approach and has proven deadly in the Philippines.
Taiwan has already reported flooding rains, landslides, gusty winds and power outages on Friday, August 7 as Morakot was making landfall and crossing the island nation on its way to a final landfall in China on Saturday. BBC News reported some mountainous areas of northern Taiwan had already received up to 20 inches of rain. Taiwan has ordered airline flights canceled and schools closed.
NASA's Aqua satellite flew over the 1,000 mile in diameter-wide Morakot and captured an awesome image of its clouds using the Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on August 7 at 1:25 a.m. EDT. The image shows Morakot's center about to cross over east-central Taiwan. Morakot is so large that the southern extent of its cloud cover and heavy rains reach into the northern Philippines. According to People's Daily on-line, ten people have already lost their lives to Morakot's wrath.
The MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this stunning image of giant Typhoon Morakot just before landfall in Taiwan on August 6 at 1:25 a.m. EDT. Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response
On Friday, Aug. 7 at 11 a.m. EDT, Morakot's sustained winds were near 92 mph (80 knots). Satellite imagery is showing the beginning development of an "eye" in Morakot's center, indicating its strengthening as it approaches landfall in Taiwan. The center of the storm was near 24.0 north and 121.7 east, about 70 miles south-southeast of Taipei, Taiwan, moving west-northwest.After Morakot's landfall in Taiwan it is forecast to turn northwest after reemerging into the Strait of Taiwan. Forecasters at the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center are forecasting that Morakot "will enter the Taiwan Strait as a weak typhoon and should maintain its intensity through the strait due to favorable sea surface temperatures and minimal vertical wind shear values."
The forecast track looks like the storm will form an "L" on its path. It is expected to lose some of its strength as its eye crosses part of Taiwan. Landfall is expected to occur on Saturday in mainland China near Fuzhou and the storm is then expected to shoot north, just to the west of Shanghai.
Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
-
Typhoon Morakot's cloud top extent doubled in size in one day
Aug 06, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
TRMM satellite captures rainfall from 2 typhoons that soaked Philippines
May 11, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
NASA Satellite Captured the Life and Death of Hurricane Dean
Aug 30, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Tropical Depression Erin Soaking East Texas
Aug 16, 2007 |
not rated yet |
0
-
NASA eyes Category 4 Hurricane Felicia and a stubborn Enrique
Aug 06, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Engineers build first sub-10-nm carbon nanotube transistor
Feb 01, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (31) |
30
-
Something old, something new: Evolution and the structural divergence of duplicate genes
Jan 31, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (7) |
1
-
The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers
Jan 30, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
1
-
Stock market network reveals investor clustering
Jan 27, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (23) |
8
-
Of microchemistry and molecules: Electronic microfluidic device synthesizes biocompatible probes
Jan 26, 2012 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
-
Do some geologists actually act a lot like Randy Marsh?
Feb 11, 2012
-
Discrepancy between oxygen and carbon-dioxide levels
Feb 09, 2012
-
where gems are found in the world
Feb 09, 2012
-
Wind Waves in Reservoir ~ Wind run-up and Wind set-up
Feb 08, 2012
-
Balance of oxygen in the atmosphere
Feb 01, 2012
-
The case for a methanol-based economy
Jan 30, 2012
- More from Physics Forums - Earth
More news stories
Latin America mining boom clashes with conservation
Latin America is experiencing a mining boom as prices rise fuelled by a hike in global demand, but the region is also being hit by a wave of violent protests, strikes and rallies by environmentalists.
7 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Political leaders play key role in how worried Americans are by climate change: study
More than extreme weather events and the work of scientists, it is national political leaders who influence how much Americans worry about the threat of climate change, new research finds.
Feb 06, 2012 |
5 / 5 (6) |
73
NASA budget will axe Mars deal with Europe: scientists
US President Barack Obama's budget proposal to be submitted next week for 2013 will cut NASA's budget by 20 percent and eliminate a major partnership with Europe on Mars exploration, scientists said Thursday.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 10, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
55
Humans may have helped the decline of African rainforests 3000 years ago
(PhysOrg.com) -- Large areas of rainforests in Central Africa mysteriously disappeared over three thousand years ago, to be replaced by savannas. The prevailing theory has been that the cause was a change ...
Study shows global glaciers, ice caps, shedding billions of tons of mass annually
Earth's glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 08, 2012 |
4.4 / 5 (9) |
14
|
Injured boomers beware: Know when to see doctor
(AP) -- It happened to nurse Jane Byron years after an in-line skating fall, business owner Haralee Weintraub while doing "men's" push-ups, and avid cyclist Gene Wilberg while lifting a heavy box.
Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon
(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...
Love a click away in Indonesia's Twitter Republic
He was a geeky kid from Yogyakarta, she a glamorous city girl in Jakarta. In a country with one of the world's most vibrant social networking scenes they fell in love on Twitter.
Europeans protest controversial Internet pact
Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.
Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)
(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...
Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher
The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...
