Giri
Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2010 1:19 am
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=46489 wrote: <<Within a day of forming over the north Indian Ocean, Cyclone Giri intensified into a powerful Category 5 cyclone. This image, taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the storm moving ashore over Burma.
The image shows a compact, mature storm with a well-defined eye and a circular shape. At the time, Giri had winds estimated at 125 knots, a Category 4 storm. The storm was stengthening explosively, said the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Just 6 hours earlier, Giri’s winds had been at 85 knots. Five hours after the image was acquired, winds reached 135 knots (250 km/hr or 155 mph), making Giri the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane.
The last large cyclone to strike Burma, Cyclone Nargis, had winds of 115 knots at its strongest. Nargis hit the low-lying and populated Irrawaddy Delta on May 3, 2008, causing extensive flooding that left more than 100,000 dead. Though stronger than Nargis, Giri was moving toward a less populated and less vulnerable region. The government had issued warnings ahead of the storm, reported CNN.>>
