Hurricane Irma charges through the Caribbean

31 minutes in the life of Hurricane Irma.
31 minutes in the life of Hurricane Irma.
NASA / SPORT

A mere handful of days after Hurricane Harvey inundated Texas with as much as 1.3 metres of rainfall, another hurricane – Hurricane Irma – is now charging through the Caribbean, on track to hit the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispañola, the Bahamas and Cuba in coming days before a likely landfall in Florida.

Irma, a category 5 storm, is one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, with sustained winds of more than 300 km/h.

This time-lapse animation of the storm’s churning eye is composed from images takes by NASA’s GOES-16 satellite and published by SPORT, the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Centre.

More imagery and data is available at the SPORT website.

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