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NASA / JSC
The storm clouds of Typhoon Bopha form a spiral far below the International Space Station in a photo captured on Sunday. The storm gained strength Monday, turning into a super typhoon with sustained winds greater than 150 mph. That's the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported.
The awesome power of Typhoon Bopha was in full view of the International Space Station over the weekend, and since then the Pacific storm has strengthened to super typhoon status with sustained winds greater than 150 mph (240 kilometers per hour). The storm was headed for the Philippines, where memories of last year's killer storm are still fresh.
"The potential destruction of this typhoon is no joke," Reuters quoted Philippine President Benigno Aquino as saying in a nationally broadcast address. Thousands of residents of coastal and mountain regions were evacuated in advance of the storm.
Bopha is expected to make landfall on the southern island of Mindanao within hours. The same region was hit last year by Tropical Storm Washi, which killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 60,000. This time around, the storm's winds are more than twice as strong, qualifying Bopha as the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said waves reached heights of up to 52 feet at sea near the storm, and the width of the storm system was estimated at 370 miles (600 kilometers). Keep an eye on The Weather Channel's Hurricane Central as the storm proceeds. And for more imagery from NASA, keep an eye on the agency's Hurricane Resource Page as well as Goddard Space Flight Center's Flickr photostream.
NASA / JSC
Typhoon Bopha swirls hundreds of miles below the International Space Station on Sunday, in a photo taken by one of the astronauts on board. A piece of Russian hardware is visible in the foreground at upper right, bearing the words "Mission Control" in Russian.
CIMSS / NASA / NOAA / UW-Madison
A false-color infrared image, captured today by the Suomi NPP satellite, shows details of Super Typhoon Bopha's structure. For more typhoon imagery of the storm from Suomi NPP, check out the University of Wisconsin's CIMSS Satellite Blog.
More views of Earth from space:
- 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
- Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
- Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
- 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
- 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
- Month in Space Pictures: November 2012
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other science and space news coverage, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered via email. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
I just want to make sure I've got this right - you're using an image of something that is about to wreak a massive amount of havoc and destruction for an Advent Calendar? Is that a reflection of the way you see Christmas, or of the value you place on human lives?
Maybe it's just that your gawd and Christwhatamess have no bearing on the reality of this storm.
Should we thank your Gawd for this gift ?
Sure will win lots of converts and contributions to youe church.
Agreed. The reference to Advent (and therefore to Christmas) was completely inappropriate.
Alan - thank you for removing it (even though it presumably did confuse people about the reason for my comment).
Yeah, that's pretty jacked up when you think about it. Very poor, offensive selection... considering.
You could look at it that way, or you could recognize that the world is worthy of awe regardless of consequences.
There's a bit of a story behind that... I had the typhoon pictures slated as the day's entry in the calendar, but in the course of writing the copy to go with it, I found that the repercussions could be bad. What I think I'll do for now is remove the Advent calendar reference entirely and let this item just stand as it is.
I was trying to figure out what they meant, until I saw this. Ok, thanks
This is a phenomenon worthy of awe despite the destructive power or the devastation it might cause. It is also a testament to our advancements in technology. We don't get to see these things from this perspective very often.
How's the weather where you are? Here in Fort Worth, Texas it is 69 degrees at 10:00 p.m.
This is December, why does it feel like April? Everyone I know is just enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having. I can not help but feel that this is all wrong. I guess it is senseless to worry about what to me seems like an omen of major changes in our weather patterns. Guess I'll just go fly a kite.
Drought is the silent disaster. People enjoy all the warm sunny weather, meanwhile the soil is continuing to dry out beneath their feet.
Where does one go if they have to evacuate the beaches and the mountains? It seems to me that there isn't that much middle ground. Beach evacuation is a no-brainer, but why mountains? Landslides?
Yes. Landslides and floods. You just have to be 1)Far enough away from the beach that you don't get killed by surge; 2) Far enough away from mountains that you don't get killed by landslides; and 3) Far enough away from rivers and streams that you don't get killed by flash floods. Beyond that, stay away from trees that can fall on you and take shelter from other flying debris and presto! You've survived a hurricane.
I'd recommend a cave dug in a granite bed rock at least 300 Ft elevation, ideally on a hillside.
Come on - - No Mayan Prophecy mentions yet?
It is a Typhoon - but, because the ocean is warmer than usual it is bigger and stronger -
We will retreat from our beach house on the shore to the high plains home, and watch via the interweb.
Those in the path, Well - Nothing we can do from here till it's over.
All these posts about the picture and Christmas and no one, no one has commented on the storm itself.
Living on the Jersey Shore and having just experienced Super-Storm Sandy, I can tell you ...
"Houston, we've got a problem."
If this "super storm, Cat 5, super-typhoon, Katrina - Global Warming stuff isn't addressed like Yesterday, this world is in for a massive collapse.
That is all, please continue discussing "the advent bovine scat."
It's Bush's fault.
Wait, what do you mean it's almost 2013 and I can't blame Bush for everything anymore?
The way things are looking it might not be a bad idea to be on the space station. It's life imitating art at this point.
What are the stats on previous storms of this size? This thing seems like a monster from a sci-fi movie! 150mph winds!? 52 foot seas?! And it's headed for a bunch of highly populated islands?
Damn.
Terrible, and I feel bad for those in the way. We here in Jersey had Sandy with just tropical winds, and I was scared sh&%. I can't imagine a storm like this.
Nature rules.
I am from the city where Typhoon Washi had a full blast last year. There were more than 1,000 people who died from drowning and etc. there were also missing people, and they werent found til now. More than 60,000 displaced, too. Yesterday, we experienced Typhoon Bopha, it was really stronger than Typhoon Washi but the difference is that, people were more aware and have evacuated a day before the typhoon came. As a result, there was nearly zero casualty of the flooding, landslides etc. in cagayan de oro city; the city where more than 1,000 people died from Washi. The other provinces experienced extremely strong winds. Like the roof was about to fly, the coconut trees, mango trees, etc. were uprooted...