On Sept. 11 at 2:35 a.m. EDT the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured an infrared night-time view of Hurricane Florence that provided cloud top temperatures.
The black color indicates some of the coldest cloud tops and most powerful storms. Temperatures in those areas around the eye wall were near 190 Kelvin (minus 83 degrees Celsius/minus 117.7 degrees Fahrenheit). The VIIRS image showed those powerful thunderstorms completely circling the eye, perhaps hinting at the eyewall replacement.
Image Credit: NOAA/NASA/UWM-SSEC-CIMSS/ William Straka III Larger image