The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image of Typhoon Fanapi approaching Taiwan from the Philippine Sea (western Pacific Ocean) at 12:45 p.m. local time (04:45 UTC) on September 17, 2010.
At 06:00 UTC on September 17, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Fanapi was centered near 23 degrees North latitude, 128 degrees East longitude, about 640 kilometers (400 miles) east-southeast of Taipei, Taiwan. The category 1 typhoon had sustained winds of 139 kilometers (86 miles) per hour at the time. Wave heights were 22 feet. JTWC forecasters predicted that the storm would make landfall in Taiwan on September 19.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.
