Tropical Cyclone Keni

Tropical Cyclone Keni

At 1:24 p.m. local time (01:24 Universal Time) on April 10, 2018, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite (formerly JPSS-1) acquired this natural-color image of Cyclone Keni over Fiji.

At the time, the storm had sustained winds of 70 knots (80 miles/130 kilometers per hour) according to estimates from the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It was a category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Soon after this image was acquired, Keni strengthened to a category 2 storm. Vertical wind shear and cooler sea surface temperatures caused it to weaken on April 11.

According to news reports, the storm caused flooding on Fiji’s Viti Levu and Kadavu islands. The region had already been soaked by heavy rains that accompanied Cyclone Josie earlier in the month.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Jeff Schmaltz, using data from LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response. Caption by Kathryn Hansen.

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