Hurricane Helene is anticipated to strike Florida’s Big Bend Coast as a significant Category 3 storm on Thursday evening, September 26. Officials are cautioning residents about potentially life-threatening conditions, which may include maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, heavy downpours, flooding, and storm surges reaching 15 to 20 feet above normal tide levels.
These forecasts, continuously updated by meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), utilize satellite data from NASA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 16 (GOES-16). Launched in 2016, GOES-16 is part of a network of satellites designed to monitor atmospheric conditions on Earth, capturing images using 16 different light channels. Remarkably detailed images of the storm are being made available online through Colorado State University’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA).
On Thursday afternoon, CIRA shared a composite image on X, illustrating the lightning activity—referred to as “robust convection fires”—within the eye wall of Hurricane Helene as it approached the coast. This electrical activity extends beyond the storm’s center; a late Wednesday post from CIRA displayed similar “lightning spirals” occurring in the storm’s outer bands.
A key factor contributing to Hurricane Helene’s rapid intensification is the unprecedented warm water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, which serve as “high-octane jet fuel” for the storm. A hurricane researcher from the University of Miami remarked, in a conversation with The New York Times, that the water temperatures in Helene’s trajectory are “about as ideal as it gets for a warm bath.” CIRA provided a time-lapse visualization on X, highlighting the high sea surface temperatures in the Gulf just prior to the hurricane’s arrival in Florida.
In addition to GOES-16, the International Space Station’s cameras captured footage of Helene at approximately 12:50 EST on September 26, as it passed 260 miles above Earth.
Hurricane Helene is projected to make landfall around 7 PM EST in Florida’s Big Bend region. The storm will then quickly proceed north through the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio Valley before gradually veering northwest as it begins to weaken. For real-time updates and information, check the U.S. government’s disaster information page.
