Tropical Cyclone Ilsa reaches Western Australia
Today’s Image of the Day from NASA Earth Observatory features Tropical Cyclone Ilsa, which made landfall in Western Australia around midnight on April 13, 2023. The category 5 storm broke records with wind gusts that reached up to 190 miles per hour.
“Around the time of this image, Ilsa was approaching the coast with winds of 240 kilometers (150 miles) per hour. That equates to a category 5 storm on Australia’s intensity scale, which is equivalent to a category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Although the storm’s center had not yet reached the coast, its outer cloud bands were already interacting with land,” says NASA.
“Notice that the storm appears to have a relatively small eye. Storms with such small eyes – sometimes called ‘pinhole’ eyes – often spin faster and have more powerful winds. Hurricane Maria, which lashed Puerto Rico in 2017, also had a small eye.”
The photo was captured by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor on the NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite.
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
–—
By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Editor
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
