Hurricane Hector formed in the eastern Pacific on August 15, 2006. Within a day, it had become organized enough to be classified as a tropical storm and earn its name. As of August 18, Hector was a moderately powerful Category 1 hurricane, traveling across the eastern Pacific. At that time, it was not expected to develop much additional power or to make landfall.
This photo-like image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on August 17, 2006, at 10:30 a.m. local time (18:30 UTC). Hurricane Hector at the time of this image was a large and well-developed system. The storm had a closed (cloud-filled) but clearly defined eye, with a distinct eyewall. Hurricane Hector had sustained winds of around 150 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour), according to the University of Hawaii’s Tropical Storm Information Center.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team.
