September 8, 2022 - Hurricane Earl Strengthening over the Atlantic

Hurricane Earl
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The fifth-named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed on
September 2, 2022, east of the Northern Leeward Islands. The National
Hurricane Center (NHC) issued the first advisory on Tropical Storm Earl
at 11:00 p.m. EDT on that date, when the storm was carrying maximum
sustained winds of 40 mph (65 km/h). At that time, Earl’s center was
located about 185 miles (195 km) east of the Northern Leeward Islands
and was posed to carry heavy rains over the Leeward Islands, Virgin
Islands and Puerto Rico.

Tropical Storm Earl tracked northwestward until September 4, when it
turned to move nearly northward. Maximum sustained winds slowly
strengthened until September 5 when maximum sustained winds reached 65
mph (105 km/h). The storm struggled to intensify until about 8:00 p.m.
on September 6 when winds reached 75 mph (121 km/h) to bring the storm
across the threshold to earn the title of Hurricane Earl.

Since that time, Hurricane Earl has continued to intensify. At 8:00
p.m. EDT on September 7, the NHC advised that Earl’s maximum sustained
winds had reached 90 mph (150 km/h), which placed it as a Category 1
storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Hurricane Earl was
located about 390 mi (625 km) south of Bermuda and was moving north,
towards Bermuda, at 8 mph (13 km/h). At that time, hurricane-force
winds extended up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center of the storm and
tropical-storm-force winds extended outward for 150 miles (240 km).
Only three hours later, at 11:00 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Earl’s maximum
sustained winds reached about 98 mph (158 km/h), bringing it to
Category 2 strength.

Although the center of Hurricane Earl is expected to pass southeast of
Bermuda after the storm takes a turn eastward, the storm is expected to
intensify in strength over the next several days to become a Major
(Category 3) hurricane. At the same time, the wind field is expected to
expand. This combination makes it likely that tropical-storm-force
winds will pass over the islands of Bermuda beginning on the afternoon
of September 8 and continuing on September 9. It is also possible for
hurricane-force winds to whip the islands, and a Hurricane Watch as
well as a Tropical Storm Warning is in place for Bermuda starting on
September 7. Heavy rain is forecast for Bermuda through September 9,
while heavy swells are expected to reach Bermuda by September 7 and
parts of the East Coast of the United States shortly after.

On September 7, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
Hurricane Earl heading northward and intensifying over the Atlantic
Ocean. The large island of Hispaniola can be seen southwest of the
storm, with the smaller island of Puerto Rico nearly due south of the
center. At the time the image was acquired, the storm was carrying
maximum sustained winds of about 80 mph (129 km/h) but would soon be
stronger. Earl sported a large cloud-filled center with deep convective
banding wrapping around the central core.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 9/7/2022
Resolutions: 1km (688.7 KB), 500m (2.2 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-09-08

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