NASA has many Earth-observing instruments keeping tabs on Hurricane Florence --including its Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR). MISR passed over the hurricane Thurs., Sept. 13, as it approached the eastern coast of the U.S. and captured the storm in 3D.

MISR carries nine cameras that observe Earth at different angles, and it takes about seven minutes for all the cameras to observe the same location. The 3D stereo anaglyph combines two of MISR's camera angles. You will need red-blue 3D glasses, with the red lens placed over the left eye, to view the effect. The anaglyph shows high clouds associated with strong thunderstorms in the eyewall of the storm and individual thunderstorms in the outer rain bands. These smaller storms can spawn tornadoes.

At the time the imagery was acquired, Florence was a large Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (169 kph). The center of the storm was about 145 miles (230 kilometers) southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina. Coastal areas had already begun to experience tropical-storm-force winds, and millions of people across multiple states were under evacuation orders.

MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The instrument flies aboard the Terra satellite, which is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The MISR data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center in Hampton, Virginia. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena.

News Media Contact

Esprit SmithJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818.354.4269esprit.smith@jpl.nasa.gov2018-215