Hurricane Wilma had just crossed Florida when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image on October 24, 2005, at 2:25 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The storm made landfall eight hours earlier, at about 6:30 a.m., near Naples, Florida. At the time, Wilma was a strong Category 3 storm with winds gusting to 200 kilometers per hour (125 miles per hour). The storm weakened as it crossed Florida, but regained strength as it re-emerged over the Atlantic. By the time this image was taken, Wilma was back up to Category 3 status with winds of 185 km/hr (115 mph) and gusts to 210 km/hr (130 mph). Early news reports say that Wilma has brought widespread coastal flooding and wind damage to southern Florida.
The large image provided above has a resolution of 250 meters per pixel, MODIS’ maximum resolution. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.
NASA image acquired by direct broadcast and processed by Liam Gumley at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
