NASA MODIS Image of the Day: April 6, 2012 – Tropical Cyclone Daphne (18P) over the North Fiji Basin, Pacific Ocean
The low pressure system that formed off of Fiji on April Fool’s day was no laughing matter. As System 95P turned into Tropical Cyclone Daphne, it forced over 8,000 residents into shelters, grounded air traffic and caused severe flooding in the island nation. According to news reports, one of the hardest hit areas was Nadi, on the western side of Viti Levu, the largest island in the Republic of Fiji. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image of Tropical Cyclone Daphne in the North Fiji Basin on April 1 at 2300 UTC (April 2, 11 a.m. Fiji Time). It has a heavily clouded eye, with extensive convective bands that spread over the region. The island of Fiji, to the east, sits under heavy cloud cover as does Viti Levu, partially seen at the far right edge of the image. On April 2 at 0300 UTC (3:00 p.m. Fiji Time), Tropical Storm Daphne had maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph/64 kph). Those tropical-storm-force winds extend as far as 200 nautical miles (230 miles/370 km) from the center, making Daphne a good-sized storm, more than 400 nautical miles (460 miles/741 km) in diameter. Daphne’s center was located about 340 nautical miles (391 miles/630 km) west-southwest of Suva, Fiji, near 19.8 South and 172.7 East. Daphne was moving to the east-southeast near 18 knots (20.7 mph/ 33.3 kph). By April 3, the storm was moving away from the Fiji Islands into the South Pacific Ocean, and was quickly weakening as it encountered strong wind shear. The last warning for the storm was issued on that same day, and by April 4 Daphne had transitioned into an extra-tropical storm, well on its way to dissipating.
