On Sept. 16,
2003, NASA's Sea-viewing
Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) aboard
ORBIMAGE’s OrbView-2 satellite captured a cloud-free image of the U.S. East Coast with Hurricane Isabel
lurking just offshore.
Instruments aboard NASA's suite of Earth-observing satellites monitored
the storm, allowing scientists to look inside the hurricane and assess
the storm’s impact. Hurricanes act as heat engines, drawing energy up
from warm tropical ocean waters to power the intense winds, powerful
thunderstorms and immense ocean surges. Such tools help weather experts
determine if a tropical cyclone is likely to strengthen or weaken, as
well as how much rain will fall on land.
NASA's
Aqua satellite's Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) provided
sea surface temperatures for a Hurricane Isabel animation. Click
here
to view the animation, which displays data from Aug. 22 to
Sept. 15, 2003. AMSR-E was developed by the National Space Development
Agency (NASDA) of Japan. To see more great images of Hurricane Isabel, visit NASA’s Web site by
clicking
here
