On September 16, 2012, the eye of Typhoon Sanba was located just north of Okinawa, Japan. Sanba was moving toward the Korean Peninsula, and storm clouds already extended over that peninsula. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image the same day.
On September 16, the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported that Sanba had maximum sustained winds of 90 knots (165 kilometers per hour) and gusts up to 110 knots (205 kilometers per hour). Although wind speeds had declined considerably over the previous few days, Sanba remained a powerful typhoon.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
