NASA pictures large 'eye' of potentially powerful Hurricane Jimena

A recent picture captured by NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-East satellites shows that Hurricane Jimena continues to grow stronger, maintaining a large eye towards its centre. According to NASA, the hurricane is surrounded by powerful thunderstorms.

The picture, taken on Aug 31 at around 8 am EDT, shows that Jimena continues to march as a powerful hurricane toward the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean. The picture shows that the central eye of the hurricane is still free of clouds, however, it is surrounded by thick bands of powerful thunderstorms all around.

The data recorded by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, or AIRS, suggest that the temperature of the sea surrounding the hurricane is warmer than 28 degrees Celsius. According to the researchers, the presence of a warmer temperature may end up intensifying the storm even further since escalated temperature facilitates evaporation and thunderstorm formation.

The AIRS data converted into a false-coloured image shows “powerful thunderstorms with cloud top temperatures in excess of -81F/-63C/210K around the center of Hurricane Jimena.” According to previous studies conducted by NASA, thunderstorms with cloud tops so high and cold in the troposphere contribute to or generate the heavy amount of rainfall.

"Jimena is expected to more or less maintain its intensity during the next day or so while it remains over 28C water and in a very low wind shear environment," stated NOAA's National Hurricane Centre (NHC) forecaster Cangialosi in a press release. "The eye of the hurricane remains distinct and has a diameter of about 20 nautical miles, and the convective pattern is slightly asymmetric with cloud tops slightly warmer west of the eye.”

Recently, a picture released by NASA showed three Category 4 hurricanes approaching toward the Pacific, all at the same time. Hurricane Jimena is considered to be one of them.

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