Tropical Storm Sanvu blew ashore over southeastern China on August 13, 2005. Though the storm had not reached typhoon status, for which it would need winds of 119 kilometers per hour or 74 miles per hour, it still had the characteristic cyclone shape of such a storm. Sanvu swirls around a slightly darker center, which was about to make landfall when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image at 10:55 a.m. local time. Tropical Storm Sanvu killed two and caused damages costing as much as 22 million dollars when it came ashore, according to the China Daily.
The large image provided above has a resolution of 500 meters per pixel. It is available in additional resolutions, including MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel, from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
