December 17, 2014 - Tropical Cyclone Bakung (03S) in the eastern Indian Ocean

Tropical Cyclone Bakung (03S) in the eastern Indian Ocean

Tropical Cyclone Bakung formed over the East Indian Ocean in mid-December, 2014. Although it first looked like it would intensify into a strong storm, Bakung ran into adverse conditions, causing the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) to issue the last alert on December 13.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the storm at 07:35 UTC (2:35 a.m. EST) on December 12. Deeper convection (stronger currents of rising air that form the thunderstorms that make up the tropical cyclone) was occurring around the low-level center of circulation, so the center was not apparent in the MODIS imagery. The bulk of the clouds associated with Bakung, however, were pushed over the southeasterly quadrant as a result of low to moderate northwesterly vertical wind shear.

By 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST) that same day, Bakung was located near 9.7 N longitude and 92.4 E latitude, or about 1,397 miles(2,248 km) east of Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is a coral atoll located in the south central Indian Ocean, and part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. The storm was moving away from land.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 12/12/2014
Resolutions: 1km ( B), 500m ( B), 250m ( B)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC