NASA sees power in Hurricane Sandy moving toward Bahamas

NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Terra satellite captured this visible image of Hurricane Sandy over the Bahamas on Oct. 25 at 1530 UTC (11:30 a.m. EDT). The MODIS image revealed strong thunderstorms in its southern arm, positioned over the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and eastern Puerto Rico. The center of the storm was moving through the Bahamas, and the northwestern edge had already spread clouds over southern Florida.

At 2 p.m. EDT on Oct. 25, Sandy's maximum sustained winds remain near 105 mph (165 kph). The storm is a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. Sandy's center was located near 23 degrees 30 minutes north latitude and 75 degrees 24 minutes west longitude, just 25 miles (40 km) east of Great Exuma Island, Bahamas. Sandy is moving toward the north near 20 mph (32 kph) and this motion is expected to continue followed by a turn toward the north-northwest. Sandy is expected to remain a hurricane as it moves through the Bahamas.

At 11 a.m. EDT, tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 140 miles (220 km) from the center, making Sandy more than 280 miles in diameter. By 2 p.m. EDT, just more than three hours later, Sandy had grown. Sandy's tropical storm-force-winds now extend outward up to 205 miles (335 km) from the center, making the storm about 410 miles in diameter.

High pressure rotating clockwise over New England may be set up to push Sandy toward the mid-Atlantic as a cold front approaches from the west. Various computer models are showing different scenarios for Oct. 29's weather along the U.S. East Coast. The current forecast track from the National Hurricane Center brings Sandy in for a landfall in central New Jersey on Tuesday, Oct. 30. Regardless, it appears that Sandy may be a strong wind event for the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast.