Three space fliers posted views of Super Typhoon Noru whirling across Earth Aug. 1, and satellites caught vivid images of the storm as well.
The typhoon clearly displays its power and might in these images taken by Astronaut Randy Bresnik from the International Space Station . The eye of the storm and its winding storm clouds leave a vivid impression.
NASA astronaut Jack Fischer tweeted another view of the storm:
And Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, newly arrived to the station along with Bresnik, tweeted his own image of the swirling mass.
Yurchikhin and Bresnik have been on the station for just five days, although they'd both been in space before.
Seen from NASA's Terra satellite, bands of thunderstorms seem to envelop Noru's eye in a July 31 image by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, circling the very large, defined core of the storm. [Hurricanes, Typhoons and Cyclones: Storms of Many Names]
Noru's sustained winds were at 90 knots (103.6 mph), down from 125 knots (143.8 mph) on the morning of July 30. In an infrared light image by NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite on July 30, taken by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument, the cloud top of Noru reached temperatures as low as 190 Kelvin (-117.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Typically the frigid temperatures translate into very heavy rains produced by these storms.
Noru was headed toward Japan's Iwo To Island at about 7 knots (8 mph). The storm is expected to make landfall on Kyushu, Japan's third largest and most southwest island, on Aug. 5. While the storm has weakened slightly, its intensity is expected to rise and fall as it approaches southwestern Japan.
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