Typhoon Nesat

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Thursday, 16 June 2005, 05:56 CDT Download full size image

What started out as a tropical depression on May 27, 2005, was a Category 4 storm by June 3, the day this true-color Aqua MODIS image was acquired. Having been born near the Yap Islands in the western Pacific (northeast of New Guinea), Nesat travelled far to the west as it grew, eventually ending up near the Philippines. By the time it got there it had become a low-level typhoon, and quickly ramped up in strength becoming a Category 4 typhoon with maximum sustained winds estimated at 125 knots (144 mph, 1 knot = 1.15 mph). Nesat then turned north, sparing the Philippines and weakening slightly.

To the north of the typhoon, a white and brown plume of ash and steam drifts across the ocean from the Anatahan volcano. Located in the Northern Mariana Islands, just beyond the right edge of the image and immediately north of where Nesat formed, the volcano has been erupting for much of 2005. The ash plume cuts northwest across the upper right corner of the image, then curves sharply down across the upper left corner of the image. To the left of the center of the image, a silvery strip of sunglint is formed by the reflection of the sun off the water’s surface.

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