Hurricane Strructure

The picture above will give you a sense of what a hurricane looks like schematically, from space and from inside the storm itself.  Hurricane Georges is used in this example because the three images shown in the center of the panel, a visible picture from space, a view from the flight deck of a NOAA P-3 in the storm and the LF radar image, were all obtained within minutes of each other.  The two visible satellite images in the lower left, the larger being Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and the smaller Hurricane Andrew in 1992, show how much difference in size hurricanes can be.  Even though Floyd was considerably larger in size, most of the damage sustained in the U.S. was from inland flooding.  Hurricane Andrew, as you are aware, was the last Category 5 storm to strike the U.S., and even though it was small, its high winds and accompanying tornadoes caused a great deal of destruction in southern Miami-Dade Co., FL.

Click on the image for a larger view.

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