When NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) captured this image on July 13,
2005, Emily was just a few hours away from becoming a hurricane. The
tropical storm was approaching Trinidad with winds of 95 kilometers per
hour (60 miles per hour or 50 knots) when this image was taken at 5:05
p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time (21:05 UTC). The image reveals the
structure of the storm, with wind speed shown in color and direction
indicated by barbs. The white barbs indicate regions of heavy rain. Both
the heaviest downpours and the strongest winds, shown in purple, are just
east of the center of the storm. Compared to an image taken in the morning
of July 13, this powerful section of the storm has expanded and moved
closer to the center as Emily developed through the day.
Emily is the fifth tropical storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season,
and the second storm to reach hurricane status. By July 15, Emily reached
Category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 205 km/hr
(125 mph).
QuikScat Background
NASA's Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) spacecraft was launched from
Vandenberg Air Force Base, California on June 19, 1999. QuikScat carries
the SeaWinds scatterometer, a specialized microwave radar that measures
near-surface wind speed and direction under all weather and cloud
conditions over the Earth's oceans. More information about the QuikScat
mission and observations is available at http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov.
QuikScat is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington,
DC, by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. JPL also built the
SeaWinds radar instrument and is providing ground science processing
systems. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, managed
development of the satellite, designed and built by Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp., Boulder, CO. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration has contributed support to ground systems processing and
related activities.
