Hurricane Michelle

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Hurricane Michelle made landfall in Cuba on Sunday, November 4, with sustained winds of 135 miles per hour. Cuban media reported that at least 5 people died in the storm and more than 600,000 people were evacuated, primarily in the Matanzas province near Pinar del Rio. Cuban officials report severe damages to property and crops in the wake of the storm.

This true-color image of Hurricane Michelle was acquired on November 4 around 10:30 a.m. local time, just as the eye of the storm was approaching Cuba’s southwestern coast. The scene was captured by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying aboard NASA’s Terra satellite. The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) also acquired a pair of scenes over the Gulf of Batabano, where the storm churned up a lot of sediment.

According to the National Weather Service, at 4 p.m. on November 5, Hurricane Michelle was located about 145 miles (230 km) east-northeast of Nassau in the Bahamas. The storm was moving away from the Bahamas as was slowly weakening. At that time, its winds were about 75 miles per hour.

Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC

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