A catalog of NASA images and animations of our home planet

• Credit:

  Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC

Hurricane Ophelia lived up to its name as it wound haphazardly north along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard during the second week of September 2005. The storm was a still two days away from making landfall when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time on September 13, 2005. At the time, Ophelia had winds of 110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour) with stronger gusts. The slow-moving storm was forecast to dump heavy rain on the Outer Banks of North Carolina before turning out to sea on its northeastward course.

Images & Animations

• Webmaster: Paul Przyborski
• NASA Official: Steven E. Platnick
• Database Updated: May 7, 2013