This time-lapse animation shows Hurricane Sandy from the vantage point of geostationary orbit—35,800 km (22,300 miles) above the Earth. The image above shows Sandy on October 26, 2012, at 5:00 p.m. EDT, when light from the setting sun highlighted the structure of the clouds. At the time, maximum sustained winds were 75 miles per hour (120 kilometers per hour) according to the National Hurricane Center. The images were collected by NOAA’s GOES-14 satellite. The “super rapid scan” images—one every minute from 7:15 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. EDT—reveal details of the storm’s motion.
NASA animation by Robert Simmon, using images from NOAA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. Caption by Robert Simmon.
