Two storms swirled simultaneously in the eastern Pacific Ocean in mid-September 2012—close enough to each other to be captured in a single overpass. At 11:45 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time on September 16, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of Kristy and Lane.
At 2:00 p.m. PDT on September 16, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that Kristy was a tropical depression, with sustained winds of just 35 miles (55 kilometers) per hour, and Lane was a tropical storm with winds of 65 miles (100 kilometers) per hour. Whereas Kristy was forecast to weaken over the next 48 hours, Lane was expected to strengthen, which it did. By 8:00 a.m. PDT on September 17, the NHC reported, Lane had strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane. At the time of that bulletin, however, no coastal watches or warnings were in effect.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
