Hurricane Norbert was a powerful Category 4 storm on October 8, 2008, as it headed north in the eastern Pacific Ocean toward Baja California and northwestern Mexico. Fortunately for the residents and tourists in resort communities of the area, Norbert weakened and veered northwest, lessening its potential to cause problems in that area. This image of Norbert was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite on October 9. Near the time of this image, the storm had weakened to Category 1 strength, with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph. Norbert strengthened slightly on October 10, re-gaining Category 2 status.
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.
NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
