| Description: | Sept. 11, 2008: Hurricane Ike Larger, Eyeing Landfall Early Saturday in Texas Hurricane Ike hasn't been strengthening yet as of Thursday morning, Sept. 11, but he is getting larger. Ike is a very large tropical cyclone with hurricane force winds as far out as 115 miles from Ike's center and tropical storm force winds outward to 275 miles! As of 10:00 a.m., Sept. 11, hurricane warnings are up from Morgan City Louisiana to Baffin Bay, Texas. Hurricane conditions could reach the coast within the warning area by late Friday, Sept. 12. At that time, Ike's center was located near 25.5 north and longitude 88.4 west, or 580 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas. That's also about 470 miles east-southeast of Galveston, Texas.
Ike is a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 100 mph. He is forecast to strengthen to a Category 3 storm before reaching the Texas coastline. Ike is moving west-northwest near 10 mph and will be near the coast late on Sept. 12, however, because Ike is large, tropical storm force winds will be felt far in advance. The minimum central pressure is 945 millibars. NASA's TRMM Satellite Analyzes Rainfall from Space The image above was made from data captured by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite on Sept. 10 at 10:48 UTC (6:48 a.m. EDT), after Hurricane Ike entered the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This TRMM image shows the horizontal pattern of rain intensity within Ike. The center is located near the yellow, green and red areas, which indicate rainfall between 20 and 40 millimeters (.78 to 1.57 inches) per hour. The red area is considered moderate rainfall. |
