Hurricane Florence

Hurricane Florence

Tropical Storm Florence is the sixth named storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. Florence started as a tropical depression (area of low air pressure) north and east of the South American coast on September 3, and it grew in power and size very gradually. As of September 11, 2006, it had become a Category 1 hurricane. It was not predicted to make landfall on any mainland are, but it was bringing strong winds and rain to Bermuda.

This photo-like image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on September 10, 2006, at 3:30 p.m. local time (17:30 UTC). Hurricane Florence at the time of this image was a large, open swirl spread over a wide area of the Atlantic Ocean. Florence had sustained winds of around 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) at the time this satellite image was acquired, according to the University of Hawaii’s Tropical Storm Information Center.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team.