OVERVIEW HURRICAN JIMENA

Overview Hurricane Jimena:

Jimena developed on August 28 about 1700 miles east-southeast of Hawaii and developed quickly. On August 30, it reached it's peak strength as a hurricane with sustained winds slightly over 100 mph. Jimena moved steadily westward around 17 mph on a course that would take the center about 50 miles south of the Big Island. On August 31, with Jimena about 300 miles east-southeast of the Big Island, the storm began to encounter stronger winds in the upper atmosphere that began to weaken and shear it apart. During the early morning hours of September 1, a rapidly weakening Jimena started moving in a southwest direction as it was now being pushed along by the low level tradewind flow from the northeast. Air Force Reserve aircraft reconnaissance could not find any winds above hurricane strength, and so Jimena was downgraded to a Tropical Storm. Jimena made it's closest approach to the Big Island around sunrise, with it located about 110 miles south of South Point. By that afternoon, much of the convection was gone and Jimena was now just a tropical depression as it continued to move southwest and away from the islands.
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HURRICANE JIMENA

HURRICANE JIMENA

Just before the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image at 11:35 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time, on September 1, 2009. The powerful storm has well-defined bands of clouds that circle a distinctive eye in this photo-like image. The outer bands of the storm were already over the southern tip of Baja California. The National Hurricane Center expected Jimena to move north along the peninsula before coming ashore on September 2 or September 3.

At the time this image was taken, Jimena had winds of 215 kilometers per hour (135 miles per hour) with stronger gusts, said the National Hurricane Center. The storm was expected to bring heavy rain—up to 15 inches in some locations, a dangerous storm surge, and battering waves to Baja California.

The high resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides the image in additional resolutions. The image has been rotated 17 degrees to the east.