Hurricane Harvey is a name you’ve probably heard a lot of this weekend, and for good reason.
It’s the strongest storm to make landfall on the continental United States in over a decade. It’s also currently dumping street-sign-high levels of water across southern Texas. The resultant flooding has also left at least five people dead with countless others homeless.
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Harvey is remarkable for another reason too: its rapid intensification.
The storm was stripped of its tropical depression status on 20 August, after it lost its tropical characteristics over Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. But that changed within a week. On 26 August, Harvey was a category 4 hurricane, gaining nearly 160km/h of wind strength in less than three days.
It made landfall over Texas later that day.
The below video demonstrates just how quickly Harvey became a horror, captured by NOAA’s GOES-East satellite prior to landfall.
The storm is now located over southern Texas, still classified as a tropical storm.
Feature image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Centre via Twitter
