NASA Sees Hurricane Gil Being Chased by Developing Storm
On July 31, NASA’s TRMM satellite saw Tropical Storm Gil intensifying and the storm became a hurricane. NASA’s Aqua satellite and NOAA’s GOES-15 satellite captured views of Gil on Aug. 1 as it was being chased by another developing tropical system.
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Hurricane Gil on August 1 at 10:11 UTC or 6:11 a.m. EDT. Strongest storms and heaviest rains appear around the center where cloud top temperatures exceed -63F/-52.
Microwave imagery on Aug. 1 from NASA’s Aqua satellite and other satellites indicated that the cloud pattern of Gil was not as organized as it appeared overnight and on July 31. Microwave imagery on Aug. 1 did not even see the ragged eye that was visible the previous day.
At 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT on Aug. 1, Hurricane Gil’s maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph (130 kph). The center of Hurricane Gil was located near latitude 14.5 north and longitude 124.2 west. Gil is far from land areas and is about 1,100 miles (1,770 km west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico.
Gil is moving toward the west near 13 mph/20 kph. That motion is expected to continue for the next 48 hours. The estimated minimum central pressure is 990 millibars
The National Hurricane Center noted that Gil is moving into more stable air and cooler waters, which will make any intensification over the next day brief, before the storm starts to weaken.
Traveling behind Gil, or to Gil’s east, is System 90E. Imagery from NOAA’s GOES-15 on Aug. 1 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) clearly showed Hurricane Gil and System 90E trailing behind. The image was created at NASA’s GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
This low pressure area is about 775 miles south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California and 325 miles away from Hurricane Gil. System 90E is moving west at 10 mph and has a 50 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next two days, according to the National Hurricane Center.
