Typhoon Nari was a compact, but powerful storm as it churned north over the East China Sea toward Korea in mid-September 2007. The storm came ashore over South Korea as a Category 2 storm on September 16, causing at least one death and stranding some 15,000 travelers on the South Korean island of Jeju, reported Agence France-Presse. Nari was a far more powerful Category 4 storm, with winds of 220 kilometers per hour (140 miles per hour or 120 knots), on September 15, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this photo-like image. The more powerful a tropical cyclone is, the more distinct and symmetrical its shape. At Category 4 strength, Nari was very “tidy” with well-organized bands of clouds tightly wound around a distinct eye in a near-perfect circle.
The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ full spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.
You can download a 250-meter-resolution KMZ file of Typhoon Nari suitable for use with Google Earth.
References & Resources
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.
