January 24, 2021 - Tropical Cyclone Eloise

    Follow @NASA_MODIS

   Tropical Cyclone Eloise
    Tweet
    Share

   After crossing Madagascar and spinning across the Mozambique Channel,
   Tropical Cyclone Eloise made landfall in central Mozambique on January
   23, 2021. The storm came ashore at about 2:00 a.m. local time (0000
   UTC) near the port city of Beira packing maximum sustained winds of
   about 87 mph (140 km/h) with gusts of up to 100 mph (160 km/h). Heavy
   rains also accompanied the storm—Mozambique’s National Institute of
   Meteorology (INAM) reported that Beira received 250 mm (13.8 in) of
   rain in 24 hours. After moving ashore, Eloise began to weaken and was
   quickly downgraded to a tropical storm. As it moves westward across
   southern Africa, Eloise will continue to drop extremely heavy rain,
   bringing risk of severe flooding. Many of the rivers in Mozambique’s
   southern and central regions were already above flood alert prior to
   Tropical Cyclone Eloise’s landfall.

   A status report published on ReliefWeb on January 23 states: “Luisa
   Meque, President of Mozambique’s National Institute for Disaster Risk
   Management and Reduction (INGD), has noted that it is too early to
   quantify the extent and scale of the destruction, but that the damage
   in Beira appears to be mild. Electricity was down in parts of the city
   and communications networks were damaged. However, teams were out
   assessing pylons and transmission lines on 23 January with a view to
   beginning repairs as soon as possible. The Munhava barrio and Praia
   Nova are both areas of concern in Beira, with provincial authorities
   reporting damages and flooding in both locations. Prior to making
   landfall, Eloise brought heavy rains and strong winds to Zambezia
   Province, reportedly uprooting trees and damaging some buildings,
   including in the provincial capital, Quelimane.”

   The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
   NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of Tropical Cyclone
   Eloise approaching Mozambique on January 22. The large cloud-filled eye
   sits just off the coast while rain bands reach well inland. At about
   this time, the storm had maximum sustained winds of about 75 mph (120
   km/h) which made it a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane
   Wind Scale.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 1/22/2021
   Resolutions:  1km (486.9 KB),  500m (1.6 MB),  250m (4.6 MB)
   Bands Used: 1,4,3
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-01-24
 
