The fourth tropical depression of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season matured into Tropical Storm Claudette around noon (Eastern Standard Time) on Sunday, August 16. The storm formed in the northeast Gulf of Mexico and headed northwest toward the Florida Panhandle, where it made landfall around 10:00 p.m.
This natural-color image of the storm was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite at 2:30 p.m. Only a trace of the iconic shape of a hurricane is apparent: cloud bands in the north and northwest gently arc in toward the center of the storm, which has no defined eye, only a wide knot of thunderstorm clouds.
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.
