Storms Jose, Maria, and Lee swirl through the Atlantic Today’s Video of the Day comes from NASA and the NOAA and features a look at storms Jose, Maria, and Lee swirling through the Atlantic Ocean.
The GOES satellite imagery was taken between September 14, 2017 and September 18, 2017 and shows Hurricane Jose moving along the east coast of the United States. Meanwhile, Hurricane Maria is seen strengthening and moving toward Puerto Rico, while Tropical Depression Lee spins in the eastern Atlantic.
Maria is one of three storms churning in the Atlantic Ocean, but it poses the most danger to the hurricane-battered Caribbean. By September 16, the system curved northward along the western periphery of a central Atlantic ridge. Remaining well offshore the East Coast of the United States, Jose re-intensified slightly further, attaining a secondary peak intensity as a high-end Category 1 hurricane with winds of 90 mph (150 km/h) around 12:00 UTC on September 17.
Low wind shear and warm sea-surface temperatures allowing Jose to quickly strengthen, attaining hurricane intensity late on September 6 and reaching major hurricane status late on September 7. With Maria becoming the first Category 5 hurricane on record to strike Dominica, 2017 also became the only season other than 2007 to have at least two cyclones make landfall at Category 5 intensity. Maria caused a major humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, resulting in nearly $91 billion in damage and a death toll that exceeded 3,000.
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By Rory Arnold, Earth.com Staff Writer
Video Credit: NASA-NOAA GOES Project