NASA MODIS Image of the Day: November 5, 2012 – Hurricane Sandy (18L) over the Mid-Atlantic States
On October 29, at about 8:00 p.m. EDT, the center of Hurricane Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 km/h). Less than six hours before landfall, at 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 UTC) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image as the center of the massive storm took aim at the nation’s most densely populated area. In this image, the clouded eye can be seen offshore, but the rain bands of Hurricane Sandy already stretched over at least 20 states and much of eastern Canada. Ultimately, hurricane-force winds from Sandy would cover almost 2 million square miles. At 2:00 p.m. EDT on October 29, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Sandy was located about 110 miles (180 kilometers) southeast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, and about 175 miles (285 kilometers) south-southeast of New York City. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 90 miles (150 kilometers) per hour, and was moving toward the northwest at about 28 miles (44 kilometers) per hour. Sandy’s record storm surges swamped much of coastal New Jersey and New York, and the storm brought torrential rain and howling winds along most of the Eastern states and blizzard conditions to the mountains. Tens of thousands of people in New Jersey, New York, Maryland and other Eastern states were displaced, either by evacuations preceding the storm or from homes damaged as Sandy swept past. Power was knocked out for more than 6 million people, and total damage from the storm has been estimated at over $50 billion dollars, making it the second most expensive storm in United States History.
