Hurricane Laura Rapidly Intensifies

Hurricane Laura rapidly intensified from a category 1 storm on Aug. 25, 2020 to a category 4 on Aug. 26. This GOES-16 (GOES-East) imagery shows the lightning activity in the storm during that rapid intensification.

Research has shown that lightning can correlate with hurricane intensity changes. GOES-16 carries the first operational lightning mapper flown in geostationary orbit. This new capability is enhancing the observation of lightning activity in hurricanes, providing higher detection efficiency, including continuous observations of total lightning (in-cloud and cloud-to-ground), and better observations over oceans. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper, known as GLM, can help forecasters predict future hurricane rapid intensification up to 24 hours ahead of time.

Credit: NOAA

#HurricaneLaura #Satellites #NOAA