NASA releases GOES-13 satellite movie of the life and times of Hurricane Alex

Hurricane Alex struggled for life for two weeks in June 2010, and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) known as GOES-13 captured satellite images of the storm. Those satellite images were compiled into an animation by Dr. Dennis Chesters of NASA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The animation is an example of one of the tropical-storm-in-ten which bloom into a hurricane,” Chesters said.

GOES-13 is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and images are created by NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Satellites like GOES-13 provide a great research tool for forecasters by showing where and how a tropical depression forms and where it tracks during its brief lifetime. GOES-13 captured Alex from its birth on Friday, June 25 at 6 p.m. EDT when “System 93L” developed into the first tropical depression of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season. At 5 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 26 that Tropical Depression One strengthened into a tropical storm and was named Alex. Tropical Storm Alex intensified by 11 p.m. EDT on June 29 and became the first hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic Ocean Hurricane Season.

Alex made landfall at 10 p.m. EDT in northeastern Mexico, about 110 miles south of Brownsville, Texas. By 8 a.m. EDT on July 1, Alex has weakened to a tropical storm and GOES satellite imagery showed it moving near the high mountains of Mexico. GOES-13 satellite imagery followed Alex's remnants as they moved inland over northeastern Mexico and southern Texas in the days following.

The first Atlantic Ocean basin hurricane of the season proved fatal to at least 30 people. Alex's heavy rainfall flooded towns, created mudslides, caused waterways to overflow and broke records.

To access and download the movie: http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/text/goes13results.html