Hurricane Bill Chemically ‘Neutered?’

Finally MODIS Rapid Response Team releases an ‘up-to-date’ [only one day old!] image of Hurricane Bill

And so pleased with the work, they moved the image acquisition date forward by 30 days to September 30, 2009!

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this photo-like image of Hurricane Bill northeast of Puerto Rico at 10:55 a.m., local time (14:55 UTC) on August 20, 2009. Bill is large, sprawling across hundreds of kilometers from end to end, and has so has a clear eye. The National Hurricane Center expected Hurricane Bill to track northwest between the United States’s East coast and Bermuda, possibly crossing over Nova Scotia and Newfoundland on August 23.  The high-resolution image provided is at MODIS’ full spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at additional resolutions.  NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Holli Riebeek. [Edited for brevity by FEWW.]

Bill, a day earlier (or 30 days later!). Hurricane Bill captured by MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite  at 12:40 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on August 18, 2009.
Credits:  See top image. [Image added to the post on August 22, 2009]

As for the chemical treatment [ ‘re-engineering’] hint, notice the thin, curvy line which emerges at 8  o’clock and rejoins Bill’s  ‘mane’ at 10 o’clock [there are also two shorter similar lines starting at about 6 o’clock just south of the eye] appear to be an abnormal aberration.  Could it be that Bill is chemically sprayed in an attempt to  ‘control’ and  ‘re-engineer’ it—to slow it down and make it disintegrate?

Related Links:

• Atlantic Hurricanes 2009

Hurricane Bill Shifts Up Into Cat 4

For updates see Atlantic Hurricanes 2009

Bill strengthens into category 4 hurricane, eying top level

Hurricane Bill strengthened to a Cat 4 on Saffir-Simpson scale. Click image to enlarge and update. See also FEWW New Hurricane Scale.

[Meanwhile NASA’s MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center, is still measuring Bill as he was on August 17.]

NHC: Hurricane BILL Data  – Summary

5:00 AM AST Wed Aug 19 (9:00 UTC)
Location: 18.0°N 54.9°W
Max sustained:  215 km/h (135 mph)
Moving: WNW at 26 km/h (16 mph)
Min pressure: 71.1 cmHg (948 mb)

Hurricane Bill is expected to strengthen further, NHC said.  Adding that, bill will create large swells which would  impact the islands of  the northeast Caribbean sea in the next 48 hours. Bermuda and parts of  the SE coast of the US would be affected similarly, Friday and Saturday.

For background information,  details of Bill’s progress and additional images, see Atlantic Hurricanes 2009.

FEWW Comments: There’s a small probability of about 0.15  that Bill could move in a westerly direction toward the Gulf of Mexico, making his first landfall on the coast of Alabama.

Related Links:

• Bill a Major Hurricane, May Strengthen  Further
• Bill Becomes Hurricane, Strengthening

• Tropical Storm CLAUDETTE [Regular updates for CLAUDETTE are found in the comment section of the post]
  
• Meet Bill and Ana, 2009 First Named Storms [Regular updates for Bill and Ana are found in the comment section of the post]
• National Hurricane Center
• FEWW New Hurricane Scale